Vanilla-versionen.  ( 6 min )

För dig som klarar dig utan extra spakar och väska.  ( 7 min )

Nästan 60 fps ändå!  ( 6 min )

20 år har gått sedan Battlefield 1942. FZ firar med ett jubileumsquiz.  ( 6 min )

Humble Bundle kränger 2K-spel för en spottstyver.  ( 6 min )

Diplomati och spionage utlovas.  ( 6 min )

Bygg en by på en gigantisk varelse.  ( 7 min )

Och annan info om spelet.  ( 7 min )

Och första spelet befinner sig fortfarande i förproduktion.  ( 7 min )

Och enligt Jim Ryan är det inte alls tillräckligt.  ( 7 min )

'Enterprise immune system' sees share price slump US private equity investor Thoma Bravo has pulled out of its planned takeover of Darktrace, causing shares in the UK cybersecurity company to plummet.…  ( 5 min )

Cisco finds custom malware in North Korea's latest cyberespionage effort The North Korean state-sponsored crime ring Lazarus Group is behind a new cyberespionage campaign with the goal to steal data and trade secrets from energy providers across the US, Canada and Japan, according to Cisco Talos.…  ( 5 min )

As deadline for mandatory code rewrite approaches, Manifest v3 still looks like a step backward Analysis  In January next year, Chrome browser extensions – such as ad blockers and other privacy tools – will stop working if they are reliant on an API called Manifest v2 (MV2).…  ( 6 min )

Bike and car accessory slinger fined £30,000 for hitting send on more than 499k unsolicited emails Bike and car accessory retailer Halfords has found itself in the wrong lane with Britain’s data watchdog for sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited marketing emails to members of the public.…  ( 4 min )

Lightbend's Akka shifts from Apache 2.0 license to BSL 1.1 – but critics not pleased about pricing Lightbend is fed up with commercial entities using its open source wares in production environments and giving nothing back to the FOSS community, so is making an alteration to the licensing of a popular product.…  ( 5 min )

Protein predication it can do, the next steps not so much – not that it was trained for this Analysis  DeepMind's AlphaFold model has predicted nearly all known protein structures discovered yet, though its ability to help scientists discover new drugs remains unproven.…  ( 6 min )

So are ITSM tools that can’t spread, data tools, and private 5G. But outsourcing is cool again Analyst firm Forrester Research has published its 2023 planning guide for Technology Architecture and Delivery and warned that IT departments will face increased spending scrutiny as economic conditions tighten.…  ( 3 min )

Or if you're looking for something lower power, it can be had with a pentacore Celeron If you’ve ever thought to yourself these single board computers (SBC) could use a few more cores, Asus’ Aaeon latest system might be right up your alley.…  ( 4 min )

Yes, that’s a lot to digest: the core of it is an allegation that Marshall Islands legislators were bribed to make it possible About halfway between The Philippines and Hawaii is a place called Rongelap Atoll that’s infamous for having been unintentionally irradiated after 1954 nuclear weapons test conducted by the USA at nearby Bikini Atoll.…  ( 5 min )

Odd couple will tie the knot in late September – but there's still no sign what's in store Citrix has announced that its planned de-listing and merger with Tibco has cleared regulatory hurdles and the two companies will therefore become one during the last week of September 2022.…  ( 4 min )

We guess new chips are only for Pros At this week’s big iPhone launch, Apple's custom Arm-compatible chips – known as Apple Silicon – received little fanfare compared to what the processors have enjoyed at previous events.…  ( 6 min )

Tech billionaire can tap into Mudge whistleblower complaint, though A judge has turned down Elon Musk's request to delay his trial with Twitter.…  ( 4 min )

A new collection of PlayStation 5 accessories will be hitting the market soon. These are all part of the grey camouflage collection, which Sony says will "bring a fresh unique aesthetic into play". The collection consists of the DualSense controller, the Pulse 3D wireless headset, and console covers for the PlayStation 5. Here is a little preview for the collection for you to enjoy. Read more  ( 15 min )

Roach Race, the mobile port of Cyberpunk 2077's in-game arcade game, is out now on mobile for free. The game was announced during the Edgerunners Special livestream earlier this week, where details of the upcoming expansion Phantom Liberty were revealed. The livestream also included information on the Edgerunners update, which added the aforementioned arcade cabinet to the game. Read more  ( 15 min )

2023's Awesome Games Done Quick event, which will see expert players from around the world highlight their skills by beating games as quickly as possible, will be held virtually between 8th January and 15th January next year. This event was initially planned to be an in-person event, however, the organiser has made the decision to move it to an online-only affair, as it feels Florida is unsafe for its community at this time. Following the event's announcement yesterday, the Awesome Games Done Quickly team shared the following statement: Read more  ( 16 min )

Every time my daughter tells me about Minecraft's 1.19 update, she describes it in completely different terms. Thrilled: "One thing 1.19 introduced is these little animals, Allays, and if you give them an item they'll go and find more of them!" Frantic: "There's a new new boss called the Warden and it's the very first blind Minecraft mob. It can't see you. It only does stuff by hearing so that's why you always want to bring a sack of wool when you're trying to find one." Strangely frank: "I think a lot of people think Minecraft swamps are boring. 1.19 tries to change that." My Minecraft expert is nine years old, and she's an expert in Minecraft in the way that only a nine-year-old can be an expert in a game. Minecraft is a ready metaphor for everything in her life, but she's also deeply engaged in the minutiae of it. She has no fear of its depths and complexities. I went through a period of thinking it was sort of sad that she didn't draw in the evenings as much any more or play with her doll's house, but now I realise: she still does this stuff. She just sometimes does it in Minecraft, and it's all evolved and started to flow together: drawing, playing, landscape and imagination. Let's go back a bit. Like a lot of kids, ours has three or four games that come in and out of favour as the weeks pass. Minecraft, though, is the game that all the others orbit - it's always in the number one spot. In many ways it's the game she measures all other games by. Read more  ( 20 min )

Bethesda has announced it is hosting dedicated servers for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Splash Damage's Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory first released in 2003 and was recently made available for free on Steam. Now, almost 20 years after it came out, Bethesda has deployed new servers dedicated to the online multiplayer shooter. Read more  ( 15 min )

Amazon was set to release a free-to-play MMO based on Tolkien's Lord the Rings works sometime this year. However, in April 2021, the project was cancelled, with reports claiming a dispute with mega-games company Tencent was the catalyst for this decision. Now, speaking to GameSpot, Amazon Games president Christoph Hartmann confirmed this was indeed the case. "We had a deal with a Hong Kong-based company, Leyou; I think it would have been great to work with them. But they later got sold to Tencent and it just got very complicated," Hartmann explained. Read more  ( 16 min )

I'd forgotten how stressful A Plague Tale can be. These kids really don't get a break do they? It's probably not right to even call them kids any more either - I'm not sure how old Amicia is now, in Requiem, the sequel, but she's a young woman in attitude alone. She's been through some stuff, they both have - Amicia and her younger brother Hugo - and they've been shaped by it. And whereas they largely ran from trouble in Innocence, and all of their abilities were based around escaping, more or less, now they've got some fight in them. They're killers, and that changes things a bit, but I'll come to that. The stress: it's a good and bad thing. Part of it is absolutely intended, I believe. Developer Asobo wants us to feel the relentlessness of the challenge Amicia and Hugo face in staying alive. They're still mercilessly hunted by a shady organisation with a never ending supply of soldiers, and they're still very much at danger from the plague ravaging the land: The Black Death and the hordes of rats that carry it. Their existence is one escape from death after another. My goodness, by the end of the few chapters of Requiem I play, Amicia is a walking wreck, carrying a concussion that's made her collapse more than once. But she slogs on because she has to - I really like Amicia (both the character and the way she's acted and brought to life); I'm less keen on Hugo. The point is, they don't get a moment to relax so nor should you. And that's fine, but when the game is frustrating to play, problems arise. Read more  ( 20 min )

Just days after releasing an updated early access roadmap for Phasmophobia, developer Kinetic Games has announced the ghost hunting sim's next big patch - known as the Apocalypse Update - will be arriving on 27th September. There's a lot going on in Phasmophobia's Apocalypse Update, starting with the arrival of the new Sunny Meadows Mental Institution map - an entirely reworked, more visually interesting, and, crucially, more compact version of the game's previously released Asylum map. A recent poll suggested smaller maps were high on the list of players' wants, and - intentionally or otherwise - the Apocalypse Update seems to be delivering on that front. Not only is a smaller Sunny Meadows variant known as 'Restricted' included - offering "5 small maps in 1" - it also adds Camp Woodwind, a miniature variant of the Maple Lodge Campsite map. Read more  ( 15 min )

We tested a room full of screens to find the best budget 4K monitors, including 32-inch, curved and gaming options.  ( 73 min )

The Monoprice Joule is an Ender style clone at a bargain price.  ( 64 min )

From budget to wireless, we've tested the best gaming headsets, and these are our picks for 2022.  ( 79 min )

We help you find the best resin 3D printers for beginners, under $300 and more.  ( 72 min )

These are the best SSD and HDD deals — guaranteed to expand the storage on your PC without emptying your wallet.  ( 65 min )

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke at the Evercore ISI TMT conference, revealing that he expects the company to continue losing data center market share until 2024.  ( 60 min )

AMD's forthcoming Ryzen 7 7700X shows up in new single-and multi-threaded benchmarks.  ( 63 min )

Microsofts Elite-kontroll erbjuds nu i mer avskalad variant där endast de väsentliga tillbehören skickas med.  ( 5 min )

Rykteskvarnen maler vidare och nu letar sig en smygtitt på en riktig mastodont ur den kommande grafikkortsserien ut på Twitter.  ( 6 min )

Den nya revisionen av Playstation 5 har ett mindre moderkort och förändrad kylning, något som ser ut att ge ett lägre effektuttag.  ( 6 min )

Bolaget vill bland annat göra det tydligare att se vilken arkitektur som används i en specifik processor genom att endast titta på modellnamnet.  ( 6 min )

Under sitt septemberevenemang uppdateras Apple Watch-uppställningen med Series 8, ny generation budgetvänliga SE-modeller och Watch Ultra för extremsportaren.  ( 8 min )

Monster-taming MMO Temtem just launched out of early access on PC earlier this week, but developers Crema have taken to Discord to defend the game’s paid battle pass. Some players have been getting themselves very worked up over the inclusion of a paid pass in a full-priced game. Yet there’s been a plan to include a battle pass in Temtem for years. Check out the game’s launch trailer below while you wrap your head around it all. Read more  ( 18 min )

It cannot be a coincidence that 1997 is a pivotal year in the world of Jack Move. In the game, it's the year everything went dark in this turn-based Japanese-style RPG, with a solar storm biffing the world's electronics. It threw the world into chaos, giving rise to the megacorps that now control the dystopian cyberpunk society where our heroine Noa is trying to make a living. In the real world, of course, 1997 was the year Final Fantasy VII came out, the seminal JRPG that Jack Move owes a great deal to (right down to its menu plink plink sound). Developers So Romantic have said outright that it's been one of the main inspirations for Jack Move, and its shady corporate powers and grungy urban landscape certainly feel of a piece with ShinRa's grip on the city of Midgar. But the bigwigs at MonoMind aren't out to poison the world and suck the life from it in Jack Move. Instead, they're more concerned with using their newfound technological powers to find eternal life – a classic 'upload your mind to the metaverse' kind of tale you'll probably recognise if you've read any of the cyberpunk 101 novels such as William Gibson's Neuromancer or Permutation City by Greg Egan. Jack Move's story doesn't tread any new ground in this respect, but Noa and her hacker pal Ryder are a fiery spirited pair that make this six-hour tale of espionage and rebellion against its cartoonish villain well worth dipping into. Yes, you read that correctly. A JRPG you can polish off in a single day of play. Bliss. Read more  ( 20 min )

Indie team Alblune, which consists of developers Lucie Lessuyer and Alexandre Stroukoff, have a release date for their cute new game The Spirit And The Mouse, a narrative-focussed adventure game with some platforming thrown in. In order to save the cosy town of Sainte-et-Claire, a charming mouse called Lila and a soft spirit called Lumion join forces to restore the town and its people. They'll be teaming up on Steam later this month on September 26th. Check out the trailer below. Read more  ( 16 min )

I keep thinking about Roadwarden like a tourist city that I visited for not quite long enough. Sure, I saw the main sights and had a great time soaking in the ambiance, but I know that I missed so many hidden gems. I want to go back and explore, maybe this time with a local guide who knows its secrets. At its most basic, Roadwarden is a text-based RPG. You play as the titular roadwarden, who sets out from the city to investigate an unmapped peninsula with little more than their horse for company. Your goal as set by the people who sent you is to investigate the region and report your findings in preparation for the expansion of trade guilds in the area. But you can also set your own goal, shaping your character’s approach from the start in a way that helps with roleplaying a particular kind of adventurer throughout. And once you get to that adventuring, dozens of sidequests open up covering everything from gathering fruit to curing the plague. Read more  ( 19 min )

Vodeo Games, the first game development studio in North America to unionise, are shutting down. The team behind turn-based RPG Beast Breaker announced their closure on Twitter, after being unable to find financial backers for another project. Beast Breaker wasn’t a game I was familiar with but its little mouse protagonist looks charming, as you can see in the trailer below. Read more  ( 17 min )

Every corner of Skyrim houses a locked chest, but where are all the keys? Only a handful actually have keys to open them. So do the chest's owners lockpick them every time they want an apple or knife? Are these chests merely decorative, their contents deemed inaccessible and long forgotten? A new mod for Skyrim Special Edition answers this playfully by adding a load of hidden keys to unlock these chests. Some of the keys look quite well hidden in this object hunt, so you'll need to poke around, rummage, and turn things over. Read more  ( 16 min )

When we last saw Amicia and Hugo de Rune at the end of A Plague Tale: Innocence back in 2019, things were looking up for the orphaned rat wranglers. They'd escaped the clutches of the French Inquisition and the hordes of plague rats following in their wake, and the pair were hopeful about finding a cure for the cursed macula flowing through Hugo's veins. Alas, when I pick up their journey in chapter six of Asobo's upcoming sequel, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Amicia is having a particularly terrible time of it. Not only is she suffering from an open head wound, leaving her unsteady on her feet, but rumours are flying in the nearby pilgrim camp about something bad having gone down in the last city they passed through. Exactly what is hard to say with five chapters' worth of context missing from my preview build, but the pack of guards who are hot on the siblings' trail quickly make it plain: several men died back in that city, and they're pointing the finger squarely at Amicia's knife, slingshot and crossbow. Read more  ( 22 min )

Razer's Viper Ultimate is one of my all-time favourite gaming mice - and now it's a massive 72% off at Amazon UK. That brings it to £48, an incredible deal for an ultralight mouse with optical switches, an ambidextrous design and HyperSpeed wireless. You even get a free wireless charging dock with it - what's not to like? Read more  ( 16 min )

Humble Bundle remains an excellent place to pick up video game collections at rock-bottom prices, and today's 2K Megahits bundle is a doozy. It contains $660 worth of games from the publisher, including series like Borderlands, XCOM, Civilization and Bioshock, for $16 (or the equivalent in your local currency, this is a local sale). That's a reasonable price for even one of these games, let alone the 18 games included in this bundle. Read more  ( 16 min )

The next game in The Division series may have had its details released early, thanks to the Ubisoft store page for the game being set live prematurely. While the website has since been hastily taken down, a handful of eagle-eyed people on the internet managed to catch if before it vanished, and published the info online. One such person, Unknown1Z1 on Twitter, recorded the page in full prior to its removal. In it, we can see several features we can expect to come to the game, as well as a basic description of what it’ll actually be. The Division: Heartland will be a “free-to-play survival-action multiplayer shooter” according to the store listing. Set in middle America, the game will have a PvEvP mission type called Storm Operations, which has 45 players take part in a battle against “A group of dangerous rogue agents, an aggressive faction known as The Vultures, all while surviving a lethal virus”. Read more  ( 16 min )

In a photoshoot fit for Vogue, Hideo Kojima has shared some snaps to Twitter of him posing with some new Cryptobiosis plushies that’ll be available at Tokyo Game Show later this month. Details have not yet been revealed regarding the price of the plushies, or whether they’ll be available online during and after Tokyo Game Show. What we do know, however, is that they’re quite charming, even if they are strange, small life forms used for replenishing blood. Going off the photos that Kojima shared, it appears the plushies will be available in two sizes. One of them being small enough to prop up on a shelf or cuddle to sleep, while the other is large enough to make the perfect cushion, as Kojima exhibits. The plushies are also shown off beside a Danboard figurine for size reference! Read more  ( 16 min )

Despite Microsoft's intent to continue making Call of Duty available on PlayStation platforms beyond the current deal with Activision, Sony says the offer is "inadequate on many levels." The offer was made privately between the two companies, but PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan made his feelings on the matter known after Xbox head Phil Spencer discussed it publically. This is the latest in a cascade of events following Microsoft's decision to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, which is currently pending regulator approvals. In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, Ryan explained that Microsoft's offer does not consider the impact on PlayStation players. Microsoft's assurances, which Spencer made public in a comment to The Verge earlier this month, reference a written commitment in January that promised Call of Duty would remain on PlayStation "for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract." Read more  ( 16 min )

FTP master This month I accepted 375 and rejected 25 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 386. I also had a closer look at the RM-bugs. All in all I addressed about 90 of them and either simply removed the package or added a moreinfo tag. In total I spent 13 hours for this task. Anyway, if you want to have your RM-bug processed in a timely manner, please have a look at the removal page and check whether the created dak command is really what you wanted. It would also help if you check the reverse dependencies and write a comment whether they are important or can be ignored or also file a new bug for them. Each removal must have one bug! Debian LTS This was my ninety-eighth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Free…  ( 3 min )

Valve has put out an update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that not only makes it startup faster but improves Steam Input handling on Steam Deck too.  ( 4 min )

Paper Animal RPG is a rather cute looking upcoming game. Currently in development from Cuddling Raccoons Studio it's a mixture of exploration, dungeon crawling, combat and a little relaxation by the campfire too.  ( 4 min )

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow is an upcoming folk horror narrative-driven point and click adventure, with a really great mixture of animated pixel-art and Native Linux support.  ( 4 min )

Seems we're due the next-gen lot of GPUs from NVIDIA soon, as they've begun their teaser campaign for something big.  ( 4 min )

With the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D as the first consumer processor with AMD 3D V-Cache technology that launched earlier this year, the Linux performance has been fantastic for a variety of workloads especially in areas of technical computing and other non-gaming workloads -- similar to the great results we've enjoyed with AMD EPYC Milan-X processors too. One of the areas I hadn't had a chance to look at until recently was how the Windows 11 vs. Linux performance is looking for this Ryzen CPU with its 96MB L3 cache. Here are those quick benchmarks.  ( 4 min )

Distrobox is the open-source software that quickly and easily fires up Linux distributions in containers for helping to augment the package selection from your host distribution, easily experiment with different distributions, and other use-cases. Distrobox 1.4 is out this week with the latest enhancements for this project...  ( 5 min )

Last week saw the debut of Vulkan 1.3.226 with mesh shader support introduced as a new cross-vendor extension while out this morning is Vulkan 1.3.227 with a new extension for helping the layering of OpenGL atop Vulkan...  ( 4 min )

One day shy of a year since Qt 5.15.6 LTS Commercial was released, The Qt Company has now published that point release as open-source...  ( 5 min )

With Fedora 37 approaching release at the end of October, more feature changes for Fedora 38 next spring are continuing to be discussed. One of the interesting proposals this week is enabling acceleration of GnuTLS using the kernel TLS (kTLS)...  ( 5 min )

While LLVM 15.0 was just released this week with many new compiler features, a big change just merged for next spring's LLVM/Clang 16.0 release: C++17 with GNU extensions is now the default C++ and ObjectiveC++ version...  ( 5 min )

Kommiku is a feature-rich manga reader available exclusively for Linux. Try it out!  ( 23 min )

Researchers from Google and IBM see unprecedented blurring of lines.  ( 5 min )

Plus glimpses of the updated Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 8.  ( 5 min )

The iPhone 14 looks the same, but the 14 Pro offers an alternative to the notch.  ( 6 min )

The once dominant e-cig company faces yet more legal challenges and FDA scrutiny.  ( 6 min )

Dealmaster includes MacBook Pros, Google Nest Hubs, Apple Watches, and more.  ( 8 min )

Gone, but probably not too soon: Apple's weirdly old, slightly discounted Watch.  ( 5 min )

PlayStation CEO says Microsoft "undermines the principle" of cross-platform access.  ( 6 min )

Persistent reports of poor sales mean small-screened phones are vanishingly rare.  ( 5 min )

Previously, Google Maps' "efficient" routes were only for gas vehicles.  ( 5 min )

Proteins form gel-like filaments that stiffen into networks to support dried-out cells.  ( 7 min )

DeadBolt has already infected thousands of QNAP storage devices this year.  ( 5 min )

Interactive map makes it easier to track security threats from state to state.  ( 6 min )

New iPhone software will bring lock screen changes, passkeys, and app updates.  ( 5 min )

Bigger cameras and a notch-less design headline Apple's flagships.  ( 6 min )

There's not much new here compared to 2021, to be honest.  ( 6 min )

Apple's in-ear headphones get their first update since their 2019 debut.  ( 5 min )

Brightest Apple Watch display yet, plus aerospace titanium case, built-in cellular.  ( 5 min )

Lineup includes Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Watch Series 8, and Apple Watch SE.  ( 5 min )

Numbers will accommodate a range of new CPUs that sometimes use older Zen cores.  ( 6 min )

After hearing, judge rejects Musk request to delay Twitter trial by four weeks.  ( 6 min )

"The font for developers who like Minecraft a bit too much."  ( 5 min )

The skeleton of an individual known as Tebo 1 dates to around 31,000 years old.  ( 6 min )

Project uses genealogy website that can be accessed by law enforcement.  ( 6 min )

Showers likely a “point source” of sunscreen contamination and a threat to coral reefs.  ( 6 min )

Nintendo's "coolest" series has run out of fresh ideas, both online and off.  ( 6 min )

Officials hope booster uptake will at least match seasonal flu shot coverage.  ( 6 min )

We've tested a European-spec Buzz, but the US models have to wait until 2024.  ( 7 min )

With Crash Detection (no, not that kind) and satellite-powered SOS when cell service is absent Apple on Wednesday enticed favored members of the media and its ever-enthusiastic employees from Cupertino to hear word of the company's iPhone 14, Apple Watch 8, and second generation AirPods Pro earbuds.…  ( 6 min )

Some of the hardest things in programming: Handling times and dates The decision last month by Chilean leaders to delay a switch to Daylight Savings Time (DST) by a week could cause headaches for some Windows users if they don't implement the workaround outlined by Microsoft.…  ( 5 min )

Whether this works as advertised is key Ring's battery-powered video-doorbells-slash-surveillance cameras can finally turn on end-to-end encryption (E2EE).…  ( 4 min )

Finding Zen just got a little easier AMD is changing the way it names mobile processors to make it more obvious whether you’re getting their freshest Zen cores or last year’s leftovers.…  ( 5 min )

FBI warns that Vice Society threat group is ramping up attacks on the education sector The Vice Society threat group is ramping up ransomware attacks on US school districts just as students around the country return to the classroom, the FBI and other federal agencies are warning.…  ( 6 min )

Company claims tech can detect quantum information at room temperature A semiconductor company called Archer Materials says it is working with chip manufacturer GlobalFoundries to help it develop high-volume production quantum processor technology.…  ( 4 min )

Could replace fossil fuels in several energy-hungry industries in hot climates without water use Scientists have produced hydrogen from thin air, a development they say could help industry harvest the promising eco-fuel in the most arid environments.…  ( 4 min )

Ideas include restructuring key goals and expunging needless meetings Google execs are embarking on a company-wide efficiency drive to make the digital advertising and cloud computing business 20 percent more productive.…  ( 4 min )

'It's hard to imagine a more dangerous scenario,' Mandiant Intel VP told The Reg Mandiant has named a new threat group, APT42, that it says functions as the cyberspy arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has plotted to murder US citizens including former National Security Advisor John Bolton.…  ( 5 min )

Rules apply for next decade, warns Commerce Department, which can claw back cash US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has warned that the US Commerce Department "has the ability to claw back money" if recipients of CHIPS Act semiconductor manufacturing grants "compromise national security" by developing leading-edge tech in China in the next decade.…  ( 6 min )

Rules apply for next decade, warns Commerce Department, which can claw back cash US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has warned that the US Commerce Department "has the ability to claw back money" if recipients of CHIPS Act semiconductor manufacturing grants "compromise national security" by developing leading-edge tech in China in the next decade.…  ( 5 min )

Kaspersky research finds Minecraft and Roblox have the most malicious files associated with them With 3 billion players globally, the $200 billion gaming market is an increasingly ripe target for cybercriminals – with the perennially popular Minecraft one of the most targeted lures.…  ( 5 min )

Both platforms based on Kyro semi-custom Arm CPUs Qualcomm has unveiled fresh smartphone platforms in its widely used Snapdragon mobile line that target the mid-range and mass-volume segments respectively.…  ( 4 min )

Anyone planning to migrate to IPv6 then? Bueller? French cloud provider OVHcloud has opened up a Bring Your Own IP service, which it said allows customers to reuse existing public IPv4 blocks as failover addresses in the event of an outage.…  ( 4 min )

Emerging field now has baseline definitions for vendors to work with The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has at last published version 1.0 of its Computational Storage Architecture and Programming Model, the specs meant to help develop the new performance-boosting tech by providing interoperability between different vendors.…  ( 5 min )

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve sentiment sees US tech stock fall amid uncertainty While US tech stocks have suffered in response to rising inflation, interest rates and general economic uncertainty, the UK tech sector — or what is left of it — is doing worse.…  ( 5 min )

Cloud and 5G mean the world needs beefier backbones and NTT thinks this could build them Japan's NTT Corporation claims it has developed technologies that allow data transmission at 1.2Tbit/s per wavelength in an optical system.…  ( 4 min )

Talk about dirt cheap Scientists claim they have fed a strong titanium alloy and a sprinkling of simulated Martian regolith into a 3D printer to study how future astronauts may one day be able to print tools and rocket parts in space.…  ( 5 min )

Particle accelerators could be next casualty of Russia's war on Ukraine CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, is preparing to idle some of its particle accelerators to save electricity, currently in short supply due to the war in Ukraine.…  ( 5 min )

National Security Agency apparently has tools that crack Solaris boxes China has accused the United States of a savage cyber attack on a university famed for conducting aerospace research and linked to China's military.…  ( 5 min )

MP alleges taxpayer database – which holds personal info on millions – has come under attack A Pakistani parliamentary committee has labelled its own cybersecurity agency "incompetent".…  ( 4 min )

After more than two decades, the space agency's PowerPC love affair appears to be at an end Chip designer SiFive said Tuesday its RISC-V-compatible CPU cores will power NASA’s just-announced High-Performance Spaceflight Computer (HPSC).…  ( 5 min )

Low-noise tool hopes to highlight vulnerabilities imported into projects The open source Go programming language, developed by Google, has added support for vulnerability management in a way designed to preserve programmers' patience.…  ( 4 min )

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has spoken out against Microsoft's offer to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for "at least several more years" beyond Sony's existing agreement with publisher Activision Blizzard, calling the deal "inadequate on many levels" - despite Microsoft's insistence it went "well beyond typical gaming industry agreements". It's the latest shot fired in an increasingly public back and forth between the two companies as governmental scrutiny of Microsoft's proposed $69bn USD acquisition of Activision Blizzard grows, particularly in relation to its impact on other gaming platforms. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority, for instance, recently said the deal would give rise to the "realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services." It's in this climate that Xbox boss Phil Spencer last week attempted to placate concerns it might be looking to make the hugely popular Call of Duty series - which the CMA called "important and capable of making a material difference to the success of rivals' gaming platforms" - an Xbox exclusive if the acquisition gained approval, insisting that it had "provided a signed agreement to Sony [in January] to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract". Read more  ( 16 min )

It's probably not much of a surprise given CD Projekt's previous assertion that its currently in-development new Witcher game would mark the start of a "new saga for the franchise", but the studio has now explicitly confirmed it's already "thinking about" new instalments beyond that. Asked to elaborate on the company's use of the word "saga" during CD Projekt's latest earnings call, president and joint CEO Adam Kiciński clarified that "like the first saga was three games...we are in pre-production of the first game from the second Witcher saga." As such, the studio is already "thinking about more than one game". Hardly a shocking revelation, admittedly, but additional clarity is always welcome. Read more  ( 15 min )

Whether a game console is a smash hit or an abject failure, I find myself drawn to all of them - and typically there's at least one killer game you have to play. Nintendo's Wii U arguably fits into the latter category, despite the fact that the system actually has a bunch of exceptional releases - and one of those titles is the original Splatoon, effectively Nintendo's take on the third-person shooter genre with its own unique twist, the paint system. It's a game that oozes style, kind of like Nintendo's take on a classic Dreamcast game - and it's brilliant. Like many Wii U titles, Splatoon hit Switch via a sequel: familiar in many ways, but fleshed out with a more comprehensive single-player offering and the excellent Octo expansion. Five years on, the third instalment is here - and there are plenty of changes and improvements to consider. I liked Splatoon 2, but this new release feels like a proper sequel, improving on the series' strengths and moving in new directions. The presentation instantly feels more elaborate, the single-player mode is vast and the visuals have improved. It feels like the game Nintendo has been working towards since the very beginning. That starts with your first contact with the game - a basic menu on the Wii U original with more polish on the sequel with a title sequence leading into the training sequence. Splatoon 3 makes far more of an impact, with a mysterious desert scene instantly setting the stage for what's to come. The camera then cuts to your character with a more fully fleshed-out, animation rich character customisation sequence. It then seamlessly pans over to the starting point before kicking into the training mission. Read more  ( 19 min )

Developer Amplitude Studios has unveiled Together We Rule, the first major expansion for its historical 4X strategy game Humankind - one that'll bring new diplomacy and espionage focused additions when it launches some time this autumn. "In Humankind," Amplitude explains in its announcement," we’ve always wanted there to be more ways to win than simple military domination. And while the game’s unified victory condition, Fame, was a first step towards that, we’re now ready to take things much further". To that end, Together We Rule (which follows several smaller culture-focused DLC packs) will introduce new features - including the Congress of Humankind, Embassies, and Agents - that are intended to "help players see the world in a new light and resolve conflicts differently". Read more  ( 16 min )

The Last of Us Part 1 released last week for the PlayStation 5. Being a from-the-ground remake for the current generation of consoles - and given Naughty Dog's reputation for attention to detail - everyone assumed that this release would be full of new improvements and fun inclusions along with the core gameplay. Now, these assumptions have been proven true, with The Last of Us Part 1's community sharing some of their recent discoveries online. Please note there will be spoilers for The Last of Us Part 1 in the article below. Read more  ( 17 min )

Square Enix is launching a campaign to entice lapsed players back to Final Fantasy 14. The campaign will run from 7th September to 30th September and asks players to invite back any friends who have been inactive for at least 90 days. In return, players will receive gold chocobo feathers they can exchange for special rewards. Read more  ( 15 min )

Microsoft's frequently sighted white Xbox Elite Series 2 controller has been officially unveiled, and will arrive on 21st September with a cheaper price point and stripped-back features. The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 – Core, as the device is officially known, comes with what Microsoft calls the "essential components" players need to "unleash [their] best game". Those include adjustable-tension thumbsticks, a wrap-around rubberised grip, and shorter hair trigger locks. It also supports button mapping via the Xbox Accessories app, and features a rechargeable battery capable of up to 40 hours of play on one charge. And, yes, it's white. Read more  ( 15 min )

Nintendo has announced a Nintendo Switch OLED model with new designs based on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet which will go on sale shortly before the game releases. The news arrived alongside the latest trailer for Scarlet and Violet, which dropped earlier today. On Twitter, Nintendo posted a video of the model, complete with some shiny visual effects, to show off the Scarlet and Violet inspired designs. Read more  ( 16 min )

When it comes to Nintendo's most significant releases of the past 10 years, most would - quite rightly - point towards the towering achievement of The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, though for me there's a game that came out a few years before that's every bit as important. The Wii U era was a commercial nadir for Nintendo, enlightened by the spark of something new; the lurid splash of colour that was Splatoon, a long-awaited all-new IP from the house that built Mario, and an impeccably enjoyable subversion of the modern-day shooter. For a company that can be too quick to fall back on the familiar, it offered the shock of the genuinely new. What's more, Splatoon was a huge success and has since become nothing short of a phenomenon, with convenience stores in Tokyo stocked with o…  ( 21 min )

The insides of Sony's newest PS5 model have been redesigned to use less power. A new lighter model was spotted last month in Australia, though it was unclear what changes had been made. Now, YouTuber Austin Evans has ripped open the new model to discover plenty of changes (thanks The Verge). Read more  ( 15 min )

A new trailer for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet details more of what we can expect to find in its open world. That includes three new Pokémon introduced here: the crab-like Klawf, plus the fire warrior Armarouge (Scarlet), and its ghostly counterpart Ceruledge (Violet) - could these be Bisharp regional evolutions? Titled Seek Your Treasure, the trailer introduces the Treasure Hunt that forms a special independent study project depending on the version played. Check it out below. Read more  ( 15 min )

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has said he once pitched a Hitman movie, but it never saw the light of day. Sharing the news on Twitter, Gunn revealed he made the pitch for a film focused on IO Interactive's bald and ever adaptable assassin just "weeks" before he got the Guardians of the Galaxy gig. "The studio really wanted to hire me, but a producer on the project did not," he recalled. Read more  ( 15 min )

It looks like Phantom Liberty could be the only planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. Yesterday, CD Projekt Red confirmed the name of the forthcoming expansion due in 2023 and the return of Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand during its Edgerunners livestream. However, a comment on a YouTube video teasing the expansion suggests it could be the only one. Read more  ( 15 min )

Humble Bundle has announced the games included in its September Choice. Humble Choice is a subscription service which offers a monthly set of games to own forever, as well as access to the Humble Games Collection library and members-only discounts in the store. This month's Choice games are: Read more  ( 16 min )

Corecell has hit back at publisher PQube, disputing its defence over withheld funds. Last week, PQube was under fire once again from a developer (Corecell) releasing a damning statement against the publisher. It followed earlier accusations from Coffee Talk developer Toge Productions that left the team "feeling manipulated and exploited". With regards to its game AeternoBlade 2, Corecell claimed that PQube "only paid a small part of the minimum guarantee of the signing milestone by the time we sent them the game and they never paid the remaining milestones", among other issues over publishing control. Read more  ( 16 min )

Gloomwood came alive for me when I got outside. This is immersive-sim-ish territory, everything tilted towards horror and stealth. Navigating the lovingly rendered PS1 era visuals, which do help a great deal to make ordinary objects singular and creepy, I awake at the bottom of a pit with nothing but a mysterious ally, taunting me through a nearby grate before offering me a magic ring. The ring allows me to tell when I'm hidden in shadow, and once it's on my hand and the grate has been opened, I start to realise how useful it's going to be. My ally is nowhere to be seen. Instead I'm in small squirrely rooms, keeping out of the path of patrolling guards, lurking in the dark, moving from one safe spot to the next. I need to get out, which might mean finding the objects needed to call a kind of grain elevator, and may mean busting my swordstick out of a nearby lockup. Gloomwood's linear but roomy: like I say, immersive-sim territory. I always know where I want to go, but my path there has a bit of leeway to it. Combat I quickly discover, even with the swordstick, is a bad idea. Take guards on and they'll slice your health away and slow you down. So much better to crouch, go slowly, considering the surfaces you're moving across, using the leaning buttons to check around blind corners, using patience, sweet patience, to learn the patrol routes and then go for the one-hit backstab. Read more  ( 17 min )

Following a small delay, Gremlin hero Gizmo will soon be making his debut in Warner Bros.' Smash-like brawler, MultiVersus. In anticipation of his arrival, the team has shared more about Gizmo's moveset and confirmed that he will be a support character, much like the likes of Scooby-Doo's Velma. The small card shared on the MultiVersus Twitter feed states that Gizmo will have a move called "Gizmo-A-Go-Go". This will see Gizmo attaching himself onto the back of his allies. He will also be able to "sing and spawn musical note projectiles" that will damage nearby enemies thanks to a move called Song of the Mogwai. Read more  ( 15 min )

A new noise suppression feature is available now on Xbox Series X/S to remove unwanted noises in voice chat. That includes the clicking of gamepad buttons, unnecessary background noise, and yes, the sound of your breathing. The feature can be enabled or disabled in the Options part of the Parties & Chats section of the guide. Read more  ( 15 min )

Following on from the Cha-Cha bundle introduced at the end of last month, a new bundle for Call of Duty Vanguard and Warzone now brings even more from Netflix's The Umbrella Academy to the fray. This bundle, known as the Hazel Bundle, will allow players to "suit up" as Umbrella Acadamy's other time travelling assassin Hazel (the clue was in the name there), thanks to the new legendary operative skin. It comes with the pink dog head and all, and is available now. "Everything happens like it's supposed to... including your enemies getting eliminated," reads the teaser for this latest Call of Duty collaboration, which you can see for yourself below. Read more  ( 15 min )

A system update for the PlayStation 5 is now live, adding in a number of new features previously available in beta. That includes gamelists, essentially folders, to make organising your game collection more manageable. Players can have up to 15 lists, with 100 games per list. 1440p HDMI video output is also available for those with compatible TVs or monitors. Read more  ( 15 min )

I wasn't entirely convinced by MultiVersus when it leaked. We've seen countless platform fighters challenge Super Smash Bros across the decades, usually falling flat. Even Sony's own attempt with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was middling, so I didn't particularly rate a Warner Bros crossover's chances. I'll gladly admit those initial impressions were wrong. Even as a free-to-play game, that carries the usual monetisation pitfalls, MultiVersus sets itself apart where it matters. You can attribute some of that to the unusual MultiVersus character roster, which isn't especially cohesive. Packing 18 fighters with more planned, they all fall under Warner Bros. Discovery's licensing, but mixing Game of Thrones characters with Bugs Bunny just feels strange, no matter how you slice it. That said, I never questioned it once I started playing - everyone's been well adapted. That's helped by voice actors reprising their roles, with Kevin Conroy and Matthew Lillard returning for Batman and Shaggy respectively as major highlights. It's a shame MultiVersus doesn't give each franchise a specific arena to complement its cast, though you'll spot familiar sights like the Bat Cave. It's worth studying each character beforehand, since MultiVersus groups them between five classes. We've got the heavy-hitting bruisers, agile assassins, defensively-minded tank class, ranged mages, and support classes who're better at buffs than damage. I appreciate this variety and the game prioritises 2v2 team fights as its main way to play, those support classes in particular helping MultiVersus to lean into this co-op emphasis well. (There's also 1v1 fights and 4-player free for all's but, annoyingly, no local co-op, which is a shame.) Read more  ( 19 min )

Stray Fawn's The Wandering Village - a city building sim set on the back of a giant, roaming creature - will be launching into Steam early access next Wednesday, 14th September. Announced last August, The Wandering Village tasks players with constructing a safe haven for a group of survivors in a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world. Its city building aspects might be familiar, but those are combined with resource management, rogue-like elements, and survival, all connected to the ever-moving creature, known as Onbu, the survivors now call home. "Forging a relationship between the villagers and Onbu might be challenging at times, as their interests often don’t align," Stray Fawn explains. "As a living creature, its unique body poses its own challenges for your village design. There's every chance a spike may have grown where villagers intended to place their kitchen, while a failed harvest may cause desperation and tempt villagers to draw blood from the creature for food." Read more  ( 16 min )

PowerWash Simulator - developer FuturLab's wildly compelling dirt-busting squirt 'em up - is currently celebrating 3m million players having hoisted nozzles since the game's launch on Xbox and PC back in May. And that milestone coincides with the opening of nominations for the next filth-encrusted edifice to be added to the game. There's not much more to say on the 3m players front, which Futurlab announced on Twitter earlier today, other than to say its success is thoroughly well-deserved. Eurgamer's Robert Purchese - who wrote about the serene pleasures of PowerWash Simulator's sedate busywork in July - is far from the only member of the editorial team to have fallen in love with its daffy charms and compulsive rhythms. And if, like me, you've reached the end of PowerWash Simulator's gloriously ludicrous campaign and urgently require more things to blast back into the realms of cleanliness, the good news is FuturLab is currently working on new additions - with the developer currently taking suggestions for what should come next. Read more  ( 16 min )

Apple bjuder favorit i repris hos den ordinarie Iphone 14-familjen, medan justerad design, ny systemkrets och bättre kameror sticker ut hos Pro-syskonen.  ( 10 min )

Efterträdaren till 2019 års Airpods Pro är här och bestyckas med ny systemkrets, förbättrad batteritid och funktioner för att bli lättare att hitta.  ( 6 min )

När AOC för tredje gången i ordning ger sig ut för att erbjuda en bildskärm för den prismedveten PC-spelaren är det mycket som är sig likt  ( 14 min )

Processorvärldens motsvarighet till öppen källkod, RISC-V, fortsätter öka i popularitet och ska nu bli grunden till NASA:s nästa rymddatorer.  ( 5 min )

För drygt 1,5 år sedan var PC överlägsen vinnare med 75 procent av rösterna. Den här veckan blir repris för att se hur läget ser ut nu!  ( 6 min )

Ikväll går Apples "Far out"-evenemang av stapeln. Säkra kort inkluderar Iphone 14-familjen, men även Watch och Airpods kan få tid i rampljuset.  ( 6 min )

En stor uppdatering bjuder på moddstöd via Redmod, synkroniserade framgångar mellan plattformar och nya uppdrag. Därtill ges ett smakprov på nästa expansion.  ( 6 min )

En Kickstarter-insamling har startats för Nofio – ett tillbehör till Valves VR-headset Index som gör enheten användbar över Wifi 6E.  ( 6 min )

Niantic has announced the star of September's Pokemon Go Community Day. The next Community Day will take place on Sunday, September 18, from 2-5pm local time and will focus on the Mantle Pokemon Roggenrola. During this time, Roggenrola will appear more frequently in the wild, and you may even encounter a shiny one. Read more  ( 16 min )

Weird West players are getting new features when patch 1.04 drops, and one of the features is a permadeath mode. Dubbed Nimpossible Mode, manual saving will not possible. Instead, the game will auto-save your progress, and you can play and reload from that single dedicated auto-save slot only. Nimp Heads you find during your Journeys will allow you to resurrect, but once you are out of Nimp Heads, death is permanent and the auto-save file is deleted. Read more  ( 16 min )

Avast ye maties, Sea of Thieves’ next Community Day Event will take control o' the galleon September 17-18. Durin' this long weekend o' celebrations fer Talk Like a Pirate Day, a Pirate Emporium sale 'n logon gifts will be handed out, 'n reachin' the top Community Emissary Grade will raise more pesky Ancient Skeletons across the seas. The scallywags at Microsoft and Rare say this event be goin' even bigger on the rewards that weekend, wit' a stunnin' smorgasbord o' in-game 'n out-o'-game delights primed 'n ready fer yer piratin' pleasure. Read more  ( 17 min )

Tekken 8 was teased at EVO 2022 back at the start of August with a little cinematic that took viewers back to Kazuya’s ending cutscene from the original Tekken. You know the one, it was where we learned about his favourite hobby… throwing people he’s related to into an active volcano. This new teaser has made the series’ longterm fans excited to get ready for the next battle once again, and it’s also made me think about what I would like to see from the franchise as it moves forward onto the current generation of consoles. Before we go ahead, I should preface the rest of this article by letting you know that I am a Tekken fan, and I’ve been playing the series since I first got my hands on Tekken 2 back on the original PlayStation. Everything I’m about to say comes from a place of love for the Tekken series, and well, a little bit of envy for what the bloodier competition has been delivering to its audience. I once got the wind knocked out of me by a partner because I was juggling her as Lei Wulong, and she didn’t find it very funny. I still play Tekken. I love Tekken as much as you do. I just think it needs to evolve in its presentation – and that the developers at Bandai Namco could learn a thing or two from NetherRealm. As a fighting game, Tekken 7 has by this point proven it has everything it needs to be one of the big multiplayer powerhouses. New mechanics like Rage Arts and screw hits are welcome additions to the fighter’s formula, and after several DLC releases the roster now has just about every Tekken character a dedicated player is likely to want to see, even including some weirdo guests. Fighting game fans know at this point that Tekken 7 is a solid, good time, and that’s why it’s the best selling entry in the series. But if Bandai Namco wants to sell even more copies next time – even quicker – then how does it recruit new competitors for us to fight online? Read more  ( 20 min )

God of War Ragnarok players will be able to visit the realm of Svartalfheim, and you get a look at the dwarven home in a short, new video. In the Game Informer video, you can see Kratos and Atreus travling through Svartalfheim in a canoe, but according to GI, there may be other ways to travel through the realm. The video not only shows off the large industrialized area but a bit of gameplay too. As you can see, Kratos can freeze geysers with his Leviathan Axe and smash hindrances like pots with his Chaos Blades. In the realm, the duo will come across mine pits, artificial water channels, and large cities that will no doubt harbor some "complex" environmental puzzles. Read more  ( 16 min )

It’s a massive day for Warframe fans out there, in fact, it’s kind of like Warframe Christmas right now. The Veilbreaker update is launching with new Kahl missions, Protea Deluxe has landed in-game, and perhaps most excitingly, Styanax is here. A free gift to players (for a limited time) to celebrate the 50th frame added to the sci-fi MMORPG, Styanax marks a major milestone in the ongoing journey Digital Extremes has ventured through over the last few years. Going from hail mary release of Warframe back in the day all the way to recent months as it expands its tendrils into a multi-game developer and publisher. To find out more about the design of this new frame, its conception, and how it reflects a newer and more contemporary Digital Extremes, I sat down with lead game designer Pablo Alonso, as well as newly-pink-shorted creative director Rebecca Ford (which apparently don’t even fit. Mrs Ford later informed me that a pair of sparkly pink boots will make an appearance on the next Dev Stream). Read more  ( 19 min )

Yesterday afternoon CDPR gave us all a huge update on the future of Cyberpunk 2077, which has gone from strength to strength since its troubled launch and has emerged as an essential next-gen experience. Fans can look forward to a decent looking anime series that's confirmed to be 100% canon with the games, continued updates that fix issues and add little bits of content here and there, and finally: a full-fat expansion which will add tonnes of new areas, characters, and story missions to the game. Sadly, however, for those still on PS4 and Xbox One, today's 1.6 patch is the last update you will receive until you upgrade to next-gen or PC. It was always a compromise on the old consoles, and CDPR look like they're ready to let go of what is still an enormous share of the market, as pandemics, cost of living squeezes, and semiconductor shortages have made the Xbox Series and PS5 consoles a bit tricky to get a hold of. Read more  ( 16 min )

Microsoft has announced a new Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 model called Core. It's a more basic version of the current Series 2, comes in white, and features adjustable-tension thumbsticks, shorter hair trigger locks, and a wrap-around rubberized grip. It will run you $129.99. However, you can change components on the controller by opting to purchase the Complete Component Pack that comes with interchangeable thumbsticks, paddle shapes, and D-pad. The pack includes a carrying case, charging dock, and USB-C cable. It will run you $59.99 and is compatible with all Series 2 models, not just Core. Read more  ( 15 min )

Finally, it has happened. CD Projekt RED has got out in front of the greatest problem with Cyberpunk 2077, and done the right thing. It’s years too late, of course – but the studio has finally done what it should’ve done before the game even released: it’s jettisoned the previous-generation versions. Yesterday’s Night City Wire broadcast wasn’t exactly groundbreaking in its content, but it did contain exciting news for those who actually enjoyed the base Cyberpunk 2077. The live stream was mostly focused around promoting the imminent release of a Cyberpunk universe anime on Netflix – and in a cool twist, that animated show is entirely canon to the games, with designs and even some of the world layout ripped right from the digital version of Night City. Bookending a whole lot of anime talk was a little bit of video game stuff, however – confirmation of a new patch which includes some new content based around the anime, and the reveal of Phantom Liberty, the hotly anticipated expansion for the game. We got to learn a little about this expansion, including the fact that it’ll be a sort of spy-thriller that sees V working for the US government, and confirmation that Keanu Reeves has returned to the recording booth to reprise his role as Johnny Silverhand for this new story. Read more  ( 18 min )

Nintendo has provided more information on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet by detailing multiple story paths, new features, new characters, and more Pokemon from the Paldea region. In the games, you are enrolled in a school that hosts an independent study project called A Treasure Hunt. Three stories will be woven into your adventures while traversing the Paldea region. One is called Victory Road, and it finds you going to Gyms in different locations to achieve Champion Rank. The second is Path of Legends. Here, Upperclassmen Arven will join you in search of rare ingredients called Herba Mystica. The third story is called Starfall Street and finds you challenging Team Star, a "group of delinquents" causing trouble for the school. Read more  ( 16 min )

Zombies have started taking over and causing havoc across Classic WoW, thanks to the legendary plague event added to the game early this morning. Across World of Warcraft, suspicious boxes can be found in hubs such as Booty Bay, which allows players to self-infect and go off and be mischievous. To find out more about the Classic WoW zombie experience, I jumped in (before the massive queue times started) and met up with several players looking to make a mess in Classic WoW, through a truly limited, special event that may never return again. My gateway to a zombie adventure was Millehouse, a level 48 Rogue in my guild who was going to great lengths to make the lives of horde players significantly spookier. They told me via in-game whispers: “I got to the crossroads and infected like 30 people. I don’t kill them, I just infect them so it can spread.” Read more  ( 17 min )

A couple of weeks ago, I described Splatoon 3 as a ‘difficult game to preview’, largely because of its iterative nature. It’s like reviewing a Call of Duty game, I suppose – bits and pieces change from one game to another, but the development machine for such an established franchise has gotten so sophisticated and so well-defined that any review inevitably isn’t going to be talking about big-ticket changes. It’s a little nip here, a little tuck there, and a modest extension to an under-developed feature. To put it another way, jumping from Splatoon 2 to this latest sequel is more like renovating a beloved old house rather than outright moving. That leads to a natural early conclusion of this review, and it’s a time-honored cliche: if you liked old Splatoon, you’ll love this! It’s like that, but better! Well, duh. Obviously. This also means that the sentiment expressed in the preview carries over here; it’s a difficult game to review. I could get into the minutiae of things like new weapons, new fashion looks, a barnstorming new mode in the form of the three-way turf war, or the improved Salmon Run mode, for instance. But then I’m waxing lyrical for thousands of words getting into tight specifics that, honestly, the hardcore probably already know, having voraciously consumed pre-release content, and the casual probably don’t particularly care to know. Read more  ( 19 min )

A new PlayStation 5 firmware update rolled out this morning to all owners. This is the official release of the latest major update, which entered beta late in July. All the features announced then have carried over, available to be experienced by everyone. The chief new addition is support for 1440p resolution, which is very useful for players using their PS5 with a PC monitor, or any display that can only go up to 1440p. This resolution is a midway point between the ageing 1080p, and the demanding 4K. Previously, the PS5 was only able to detect either. 1440p support can be tested using a button in the settings menu, to make sure your display supports it. Unfortunately, and quite inexplicably, running the console in 1440p turns off VRR. PS5 currently only supports VRR for 1080p and 4K. VRR allows the screen to sync its refresh rate to the framerate of the game, eliminating screen tearing and making for an overall smoother experience, even when framerate is inconsistent. Read more  ( 15 min )

The latest from Subnautica developer, Unknown Worlds, is turn-based tabletop game Moonbreaker. Set in a sci-fi universe, players will be able to collect and digitally paint their own figurines before showing them off during play; something my inner painter is excited for! While Moonbreaker is set to launch in Steam's Early Access later this month on September 29, playtests are currently being arranged for those who want to try out the game even earlier. Playtests will be via Steam, and the first ones will be happening on September 9 and 11 respectively. If you don't think you'll have time on those days, do not fret, as even more playtests will be happening on September 16 and 18, too. Read more  ( 16 min )

The veil around Steelrising has lifted, meaning early review impressions of the third-person action game, alongside all its shiny bits and blemishes, are out in the wild for the world to see. Comparisons to the rest of the genre, especially the From Software games that have set the bar, are impossible to avoid. To go alongside our in-depth review of Steelrising, Connor and Jim have sat down to talk briefly about some of the games best and dodgiest parts. You can check out that video below, which you should absolutely do if you want a quick fix of informal discussion, or the occasional botched French word here and there. Not to spoil it or anything, but Connor talks about the revolutionary France setting of the game, something they found particularly interesting throughout the process of their review. This pro comes with a chaser, the way your character’s background as a dancing, prancing automat is weaved into combat, represented as quite remarkable move sets. It’s pretty cool to look at at! Read more  ( 16 min )

It takes a lot of guts to throw SteelRising into the Souls-like ring. It’s a popular arena, ever-growing over the last few years as more and more people dive into a genre known for intense action, a healthy challenge, and gruesome, fantastical worlds. If a game can set itself apart, like The Surge 2 or the Nioh series, history has shown the move to be worthwhile. But for every success story there are twice as many bombs, who couldn’t stand up to obvious and unavoidable comparisons to some of the best games released over the past decade. SteelRising, in my mind after a full playthrough and some change, doesn’t quite make the mark. Let’s start with what you likely already know. SteelRising is a third-person action game, where you adventure across several levels taking on an environment packed full of difficult enemies before encountering a gigantic boss posing a significant challenge. You have rechargeable healing items that are restored at set resting points, as well as a variety of consumables that aide in combat. Killing enemies provides currency which can, in turn, be used to upgrade your character and weaponry. It’s a Souls-like. Chances are if you’re reading this review, you know exactly what foundation Steel Rising is built upon. For what it’s worth, this foundation is fairly solid! Your movement as a French murder doll in the midst of combat has you weaving in-between attacks and string together powerful combos with a mix of regular, heavy, and special attacks. Put on enough pressure and you can break an enemy's posture, allowing you to land a single devastating attack. Backstabs aren’t here, but are instead replaced with a universal sneak attack you can land on any and all unaware automata. If you’re fiending for some of that Dark Souls-esque action, feats like these do indeed cause your brain to shoot off those sweet signals. Read more  ( 20 min )

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic  ( 2 min )

For less than $230, you get ray tracing and strong 1080p gaming.  ( 67 min )

Whether you’re gaming from the couch, writing book on the road, or you just want a clutter-free desk, these are the best wireless keyboards we've tested.  ( 83 min )

These are the best portable monitors to ponder if you're looking to expand real estate for your laptop.  ( 73 min )

In such a short space of time, the RP2040 has disrupted the microcontroller community and we now have a smörgåsbord of RP2040 boards to choose from.  ( 69 min )

Apple's iPhone 14 Pro will be powered by the new A16.  ( 60 min )

We break down the best computer monitors for upgrading your setup in 2022.  ( 75 min )

A new update release of Raspberry Pi OS brings tweaks and new features to everyone's favorite single board computer.  ( 59 min )

The August Steam Hardware Survey indicates Nvidia's RTX 30-series GPUs are the most popular among gamers now, followed by the GTX 10-series.  ( 63 min )

Here are the best X570 motherboards we've tested, for your AMD Ryzen PC build needs.  ( 74 min )

We tested 90 different thermal pastes to help you find the best one to help cool your CPU.  ( 80 min )

Nvidia is keen to shift remaining stocks of its high-end Ampere GPUs, and is now adding bundles with newsworthy PC game releases.  ( 60 min )

Official specifications for Computational Storage have been launched, paving the way for hardware and software.  ( 59 min )

Invite your friends to play on a server that lives in your home.  ( 63 min )

MSI lists four of its AMD X670 and X670E motherboards, reveals prices.  ( 64 min )

If you're into serious gaming and want the best tools available, the Logitech Pro X Superlight wireless gaming mouse for only $99 is a no-brainer.  ( 66 min )

AMD has updated its mobile CPU model numbers for 2023 ahead of a new range of CPUs, including Mendocino and Dragon Range.  ( 60 min )

AMD's upcoming RDNA 3 architecture and the Radeon RX 7000-series will ship before the end of the year. We look into the details and rumors of when to expect these GPUs.  ( 70 min )

From cases to keyboards, wires and cameras, these products will help you make the most of your Raspberry Pi.  ( 75 min )

The PS5 ‘1200’ model has a significantly smaller motherboard, and a more compact cooling system (with more copper). It also runs games while using 10% less power, a preliminary inspection has shown.  ( 64 min )

The $50 billion Chips Act budget will be shared between makers of logic and memory chips, developers of advanced technologies.  ( 63 min )

We've gathered the top pre-built desktop and laptop deals you can find.  ( 63 min )

The Raspberry Pi HATs (Hardware Attached on Top) bring tons of extra functionality to your Pi. The best HATs allow you to build a retro gaming machine, develop an A.I., power a robot or just learn about programming.  ( 72 min )

A nice upgrade even over the Mars 3.  ( 70 min )

Find the right case for your Raspberry Pi.  ( 84 min )

You’ve got the Raspberry Pi Pico, but what accessories do you need to get the most from this board?  ( 68 min )

We tested ten different microSD cards on three different Pi models to help you find the fastest one for your Raspberry Pi.  ( 81 min )

2K have plenty of good games under their belt and they have a new 2K Megahits Bundle with some top games and some classics included together.  ( 4 min )

Previously available in Steam Labs, some of the biggest changes to the Steam Store in years are now live for everyone.  ( 4 min )

They will be missed and this is technically now actually their last game, with the The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection officially out now with Linux support.  ( 4 min )

Take on the detective role in Nine Noir Lives, a new "point and lick" comedy adventure game out now.  ( 4 min )

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist seems like a hard game to pin to a genre. It's a blending of a narrative adventure with RPG elements, deck-building and much more.  ( 4 min )

Valve continues rolling out smaller updates to the Steam Deck Beta, with another update out now fixing some crashing issues.  ( 4 min )

Däribland ett som äger rum i feodala Japan.  ( 7 min )

Bäst på Gamescom, om FZ:s utsända själv får välja.  ( 7 min )

Och en hel del annat, visar det sig.  ( 6 min )

Delar av systemkraven släppta.  ( 6 min )

Första och sista?  ( 6 min )

NZXT lanserar ett helt bedrövligt inspelningskort, som måste tillbaka till ritbordet.  ( 16 min )

Ett fascinerande soulslike mitt i franska revolutionen. Men det borde ha gjorts bättre.  ( 10 min )

En chans att själv fixa saker du är missnöjd med.  ( 6 min )

Kan CD Projekt återupprätta sitt goda namn?  ( 6 min )

Äntligen!  ( 6 min )

För gamern som inte vill bli upptäckt under älgjakten.  ( 6 min )

Roligare än att städa på riktigt?  ( 6 min )

Uppföljaren till Firewall: Zero Hour.  ( 6 min )

Och de får även möjlighet att köpa mer av Ubisoft.  ( 6 min )

En tripp till dvärgarnas boning.  ( 6 min )

Last time, you decided that a really big unreal place is better than going undercover. Good. Very good. Great deciding, reader dear. I'm wholly impartial, of course, but I am glad you haven't forced me to come up with some contrived reason to jam a really big unreal place back into the running. We can continue. This week, it's a question of jarring vs. juicy. What's better: physics freakouts or beautiful food? Read more  ( 17 min )

The musical mastermind behind Rivals and Family is back with a new game. Riley & Rochelle follows the two titular talented musicians, former lovers and eventual superstars, while you as the player are tasked with uncovering the secrets of their lives to find the reveal them. With Tim Sheinman joining forces with writer Natalia Yanchak, Riley & Rochelle continues the playstyle of Sheinman's previous interactive puzzle games, where you traverse through muscical memories both good and bad. Take a look at the new reveal trailer below. This time you're cast as someone making a movie about Riley and Rochelle. You must extract truths from diary entries, voicemails and other characters to correctly put together the timeline. Use your knowledge, deductive skills and appreciation for “naughty” 90s culture to succeed. Prepare to correctly answer different quizzes (the screenshots show an Audio Quiz and a Fan Fiction quiz) to test your Riley and Rochelle knowledge in the game. You'll even have to research real-life events to get to the bottom of things. As with Sheinman's other games, though, music is the real star. A big part of the game is listening to audio recordings and songs sung by Rochelle and Riley, original tracks written for the game, to ascertain where, if, and how their relationship will end. Read more  ( 16 min )

The Hitman games are often good and usually fun, it’s fair to say, particularly the recent World Of Assassination trilogy. Ian Hitman’s turn in the two films released about his adventures has been rougher to recommend, though. That’s why it’s simultaneously disappointing and awesome to learn that Guardians Of The Galaxy, The Suicide Squad and – shudder – Slither director James Gunn narrowly missed his target when he pitched a Hitman movie. Read more  ( 17 min )

3rd person skater/shooter Rollerdrome has some really cool weapons, but what is it that makes them so special? I mean, there’s only four of them, and you’re forced to constantly perform tricks to regain ammo, which doesn't make them easy to use. I think it’s because of their more literal significance in the game. Rollerdrome threatens you with multiple enemy types called Houseplayers, all formidable, especially in the heat of battle when they combine their efforts. Luckily, the four distinct weapons you’re equipped with act as an equaliser; each weapon is a solution for a particular enemy. Developers Roll7 could have easily added a bunch of copied and pasted guns from every generic shooter, but instead they were more intentional about the weapons they included, with each weapon complimenting the gunplay and the game as a whole. Read more  ( 17 min )

Red Dead Redemption 2 now has official FSR 2.0 support, as of the just-released 1.31 update. This makes Rockstar’s cowboy epic/improvised teleconferencing software the latest game to work with AMD’s upscaler without mods; an unofficial FSR patch for RDR2 has been out for a while, but this update should make it even easier to simply enable or disable FSR in the settings menu. Alongside its rival, Nvidia DLSS, which Rockstar also added last year. Read more  ( 17 min )

Sega and devs Amplitude have revealed the first hefty expansion for their Civ-alike strategy Humankind launches sometime this autumn. Together We Rule adds six new civilizations to play as, and introduces some new diplomatic and spying options to save you from having to attack everyone all the time. Have a watch of the rather neat trailer for Together We Rule below. Read more  ( 17 min )

Chinese media giants Tencent have invested €300 million (£260 million) in the company operated by Ubisoft’s founding family, the Guillemots. The deal will see Tencent bring some of Ubisoft’s most well known game series to mobile, and to PC in China. Tencent’s investment in Guillemot Brothers Limited follows speculation last month that they were looking to take out a bigger stake in Ubisoft, even becoming the single largest shareholders. Read more  ( 17 min )

I'm an enormous fan of the premise of Steelrising (which is good, because enormous fans are also a weapon in it). In it, we're whisked to an alternative history where King Louis XVI stopped the French Revolution before it properly got going by, err, killing everyone with steampunk robots. You're Aegis, a feminine robot created to entertain and protect Queen Marie Antoinette. Marie, safe outside Paris but somewhat peeved at her husband's new penchant for extreme mass murder, sends you on a Soulslike mission to sort it all out. This takes some doing, but luckily Aegis is a very advanced robot, the bestest of all the robots. Slight but adaptive with it, and even having an advanced AI, Aegis can carve a swift path through the more than usually twisted metal in her way. It's a bit too easy, in fact. Read more  ( 20 min )

Indie developers Corecell have responded to UK-based publisher PQube with another statement this time critiquing PQube’s contention that they tried to return the console rights to action puzzler AeternoBlade 2. Corecell came forward last week with the second accusation made by an indie team against PQube in less than a month, following A Space For The Unbound devs Mojiken Studio’s claims in late August. Both studios claim PQube withheld money from them. Read more  ( 17 min )

What sounds like the entire Assassin’s Creed line-up for Saturday’s Ubisoft Forward presentation may have been leaked online. Unnamed sources have supposedly told TryHardGuides that three new AC games will be announced during the event, with an instalment set in feudal Japan being among them. Bloomberg backs up the report, stating that the other games purported to be in development include one set in the 16th century that could be dealing with witches, and a mobile game set in China. Read more  ( 17 min )

I have lovely, blue sky memories of Sega Rally, and I'm not the only one. Over Jump Rally is a fan-created homage to Sega's forgotten arcade racer built in Unreal Engine 5, and there's a demo available now if you want to get your wheels dirty. Read more  ( 16 min )

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a cheaper, better-value version of the Ryzen 5600X - the CPU took the world by storm when Ryzen 5000 launched back in 2020. With six cores and 12 threads to access, you get good performance in modern game engines, while the higher single-core speeds introduced with this generation of AMD processors allows for better performance in single-core-limited (often older) games. It's a potent combination that makes the 5600X - and the 5600 - the best value AMD CPUs for gaming out there. Normally the 5600 retails for £173, in comparison to £185 for the 5600X, but today it's down to £150 on Amazon, coming within £10 of the best price we've ever seen on this model. Read more  ( 16 min )

I didn’t think your average, everyday, common-all-garden hands bothered me at all. Not until I saw several scrunching up, pretending to be the eyes, nose and mouth of someone’s face in images from upcoming psychological horror card game Out Of Hands. See, Out Of Hands has a slight fixation on the ol’ phalanges. Witness for yourself in the trailer below. Read more  ( 17 min )

Ahead of the upcoming Godot 4.0 Beta, this impressive open-source game engine has been tacking on a few more improvements in another Godot 4.0 alpha build...  ( 4 min )

Due to bringing a number of new SoC designs to market next year and trying to make their model numbers easier to decipher, AMD announced this morning a new naming system for Ryzen mobile processors...  ( 4 min )

Blender 3.3 is out this morning as the newest version of this widely-used, open-source and cross-platform 3D modeling software...  ( 5 min )

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just announced a new release of their Debian-based Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) as their reference Linux distribution for running on these low-cost Arm single-board computers...  ( 5 min )

The latest open-source Radeon Vulkan driver work for Mesa 22.3's RADV is enabling 3D sparse image support...  ( 4 min )

Blender 3.3 is set to be released today and one of the exciting enhancements with this open-source, cross-platform 3D modeling software update is initial support for Intel oneAPI/SYCL GPU acceleration. Intel Arc Graphics discrete GPUs can now enjoy this accelerated Cycles back-end, permitting your driver stack is new enough on Windows or Linux and are using their new dGPUs and not existing integrated graphics. But this is just the start of their oneAPI GPU-accelerated push for Blender...  ( 5 min )

Since Apple introduced the M1 two years ago as their in-house Apple Silicon for laptops and desktops with a powerful AArch64 processor and custom-designed graphics processor, there has been much speculation about whether the Apple M1 (and now M2) graphics are a clean-sheet Apple design or derived from Imagination PowerVR graphics that Apple had been using with earlier SoCs. There has been some similarities brought up before with the Asahi Linux team working on enabling the Apple M1/M2 under Linux while the latest Mesa driver activity points to more common bits between PowerVR graphics hardware and the Apple AGX graphics...  ( 6 min )

Formed back in 2019 by Intel, Mozilla, and Red Hat was the Bytecode Alliance to promote running WebAssembly (WASM) everywhere. As part of the Bytecode Alliance initiatives they have been developing Wasmtime as a WebAssembly run-time and later this month they plan to christen version 1.0...  ( 5 min )

Following a slight release delay, yesterday saw the release of NetBeans 15 by the Apache Software Foundation as this Java-focused integrated deevelopment environment that also supports C/C++, PHP, JavaScript, and other languages...  ( 4 min )

While Intel Arc Graphics is already running on the open-source Linux driver stack, Intel engineers continue improving upon and refining that DG2/Alchemist graphics card support. Overnight some fresh workarounds were merged into Mesa 22.3-devel as the latest Linux driver improvements for Intel's forthcoming discrete graphics cards...  ( 4 min )

Back in July I called attention to the issue how Linux 5.19 was set to break Alder Lake P graphics support unless moving to new graphics micro-controller "GuC" firmware in tandem. That user-space breakage is frowned upon and following that article the upstream DRM kernel maintainers outlined explicit requirements around firmware not breaking driver support. Intel engineers ended up submitting a quick fix for Linux 5.19 to still support the existing firmware while now a more adequate solution has been devised...  ( 5 min )

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I have just deleted two forks I had of the GitLab project in my gitlab.com account. I did this after receiving a warning that quotas would now start to be enforced. It didn't say that I was going over quota, so I actually had to go look in the usage quotas page, which stated I was using 5.6GB of storage. I found that puzzling: maybe wallabako? I build images there in CI... Or the ISOs in stressant? Nope. The biggest disk users were... my forks of gitlab-ce and gitlab-ee (now respectively called gitlab-foss and gitlab-ee, but whatever). CE was taking up roughly 1GB and EE was taking up the rest. So I deleted both repos, which means that the next time I want to contribute a fix to their documentation — which is as far as I managed to contribute to GitLab — I will need to re-fork those humongous repositories. Maybe I'm reading this wrong. Maybe there's a bug in the quotas system. Or, if I'm reading this right, GitLab is actually double-billing people: once for the source repository, and once for the fork. Because surely repos are not duplicating all those blobs on disk... right? RIGHT? Either case, that's rather a bad move on their part, I feel like. With GitHub charging 4$/user/month, it feels like GitLab is going to have to trouble to compete by charging 20$/user/month as a challenger... But maybe it's just me: I'm not an economist, surely there's some brilliant plan here I'm missing... In the meantime, free-ish alternatives include Quay.io (currently free for public repos) and sr.ht (2$/mth, but at least not open-core, unfortunately no plan for a container registry). And of course, you can painfully self-host GitLab, sr.ht, gitea, pagure, or whatever it is the current fancy gitweb.  ( 1 min )

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Grossman, Gilbert talk to us while playing final build, tease a 32-year-old secret.  ( 6 min )

If previous XPS 15 models have turned you off, this one won't change your mind.  ( 5 min )

OceanGate Expeditions shot the footage earlier this year with a manned submersible.  ( 7 min )

Ukraine says Russia's military arsenal has dwindled by nearly half.  ( 5 min )

FCC aims to release the most accurate US-wide broadband map to date in November.  ( 6 min )

Security hole exists in a browser component known as Mojo.  ( 4 min )

Selling iPhones without chargers only passes burden on to the consumer, feds say.  ( 5 min )

Ars attended a test for the new hybrid endurance prototype car, the 963.  ( 6 min )

Google's tablet-focused release is finally coming to large-screen Samsung devices.  ( 5 min )

Female skeleton was buried with sickle placed across her neck and a padlock on big toe.  ( 6 min )

Gallium nitride allows for more ports, smaller size than Apple's charger.  ( 5 min )

AI image synthesis goes open source, with big implications.  ( 6 min )

This stellar nursery is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud.  ( 5 min )

New anthology of British series actually manages to collect the work that makes it great.  ( 6 min )

Valve hardware provides a simple, authentic emulated experience.  ( 5 min )

Facebook is reviewing the decision.  ( 5 min )

"We cannot work with a partner who is completely trampling on those values."  ( 6 min )

During the first wave of RTX 3080 reviews, when we had no idea of the graphics card supply shortage to come, I remember being really impressed by the Asus Tuf Gaming model. It didn't look particularly special on the outside, but it consistently beat even more expensive models in terms of thermals and performance. I resolved to get one for myself, but things went mad and I only eventually managed to get one through my work. Now though, you can get the upgraded version of that high-performer at a more reasonable price: £650 for the Tuf Gaming OC V2, an overclocked model offering excellent performance for £400 below this model's UK RRP. Read more  ( 17 min )

On September 13th, patch 1.04 will arrive for Weird West. The twin-stick shooter slash immersive sim slash supernatural cowboy bonanza has had several post-release quality-of-life updates, and 1.04 has some substantial additions of its own, including a new permadeath mode and an alternative aiming system. Read more  ( 16 min )

I saw people referring to Gloomwood as "Thief with guns" and thought, 'ah, bit reductive that. I'll come up with--' oh no wait its URL is thiefwithguns.com. Fair enough. It is an accurate description, and if you've enjoyed its demos during various Steam Fests, you'll be pleased to know it's now out in Steam Early Access. Read more  ( 16 min )

Gundam Evolution is a free-to-play first-person shooter about piloting the famous anime mechs. A new video released today outlines both the game's release date - September 21st - as well as the post-release updates you can expect, including the season pass and the first batch of additional mechs. Read more  ( 16 min )

In a new Night City Wire tonight, CD Project Red played the strongest card they have in their Cyberpunk 2077 deck, that being Keanu "Nicest Guy In Hollywood" Reeves. America's bad-ass actor dad played semi-imaginary rock anarchist (I know I'm being reductive, don't leave comments) Johnny Silverhand in the main game, and he popped up to confirm he's back for 2023's expansion - which we now know is officially called Phantom Liberty. There's also the Edgerunner update dropping today, a tie-in for the Netflix anime Edgrunners (more info on that was also revealed tonight), and free-to-play mini game featuring Roach the horse, because we all like Roach the horse. Read more  ( 17 min )

CD Projekt broadcast a Night City Wire stream today to give the lowdown on anime series Edgerunners and details of a tie-in update for Cyberpunk 2077. Edgerunners debuts on Netflix on September 13th, and producer Bartosz Sztybor explained a bit more about what to expect from the series. You can watch Edgerunners’ NSFW trailer below. Read more  ( 17 min )

We PC gaming folk have built cities in different time periods and weather conditions, on a vast array of worlds and even in VR. I don’t think I’ve ever built one on the back of a giant animal after the apocalypse, though. Indie sci-fi citybuilder The Wandering Village will let me do that when it enters early access on Steam on September 14th. See the great lumbering beast for yourself by watching the trailer below. Read more  ( 17 min )

2024 seems impossibly far away given the state of the world right now, but with today's announcement of Lucid, a new Metroid-y Celeste-like from The Matte Black Studio and Apogee Entertainment, at least we'll have a cool new video game to look forward to when it eventually rolls round. I got a sneaky early peek at Lucid behind closed doors at PAX East earlier this year, and let me tell you, its gorgeous pixel art and emphasis on air dashing through crystalline barriers with a honking great axe looks rad as hell. Let's admire its gleaming reveal trailer below. Read more  ( 17 min )

Playing settlement-building survival game Farthest Frontier has me planning a lot. I'm planning outposts to mine distant resources. I'm planning road and neighbourhood layouts to optimise movement and happiness. I'm planning defences to fend off bandits. But most of my thought is going on farming, planning my crop rotations to optimise fertility and yields. Finally, I have a use for everything school taught me about the three-field system and the nitrogen cycle. Read more  ( 19 min )

Rare’s pirate adventure Sea Of Thieves is marking this year’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day a few days early for its Season Seven Community Day on September 17th. This season’s special event busts out boosts to the game’s Renown progression system, kicks off a skeletal infestation, and might even land you a very fancy hat. Put on your eyepatch and have a watch of what’s in store for the event below. Read more  ( 17 min )

Sci-fi tabletop sim Moonbreaker is getting two rounds of playtests on Steam in September ahead of its launch into early access, devs Unknown Worlds have revealed. These run on September 9th to 11th and again on September 16th to 18th, giving access to most of the game. You can take a look at Moonbreaker in action from its announcement at last month’s Gamescom below. Read more  ( 17 min )

The latest playtest build of the next in EA’s Skate series appears to have leaked, continuing the pattern that seems to have been established for the game over the past few months. Footage from the build was shared by Reddit user Parzalai, who said they had been banned from their EA account for leaking a previous build. Modders have been running their own multiplayer servers based on leaked builds of skate. for months, so it’s not surprising to see further leaks spring up from the game’s playtests. Read more  ( 16 min )

The sight of a two-carriage train is normally something that prompts a deep sigh of despair from me in real life. Nine times out of ten, it's a sign that something's gone wrong further up the line - that someone, somewhere, has sent out a train with half its usual number of carriages, and is therefore destined to ruin everyone's day in the process by cramming us all in like a pack of sardines. In Afterburn's adorable train puzzler Railbound, however, two carriages are a cause for celebration. In a game that's about guiding numbered compartments onto the back of an engine (using a limited number of track tiles to get them there in the right order), two-carriage puzzles offer the perfect amount of cerebral head-scratching. They've got a bit more bite than simply guiding a single carriage to its destination, but they're not so complicated that they'll repeatedly make you reach for the hint button to help you fill in the gaps. Railbound has a tendency to be a bit too abstract in its later stages, but more on that in a sec. All you need to know right now is that there are plenty of smart ideas to wrap your head around here, and that you'll be grinning from ear to ear by the time you reach the end of the line. Read more  ( 19 min )

As PC setups are carefully packed away and booths are dismantled, the curtain closes on another PAX West and it's time to say goodbye to Seattle (for now anyway). After four packed days of demos, panels, interviews, and lots of fruit smoothies, Liam and I are completely PAXed out, but we're not done quite yet. Below you'll find something a little different from our usual daily round-ups. For our last day at PAX, we've done a super, uber, mega round-up on the entire event. We list off our favourite panel moments, the best game demos we played, and our general opinion on how the overall convention went. Click play below to see one of our last videos from the event: Read more  ( 16 min )

Being subcontractors, their working conditions ain't our problem – US giant's stance A group of delivery drivers subcontracting for Amazon in Japan have unionized, claiming the internet titan's AI software often plans routes that are impossible to complete within set deadlines.…  ( 4 min )

Online booking systems and other services knocked offline amid network intrusion The IT systems of InterContinental Hotels Group, the massive hospitality organization that operates 17 hotel brands around the world, have been compromised, causing ongoing disruption to the corporation's online booking systems and other services.…  ( 5 min )

Good for the environment? Bad for the customer, say Brazilian officials after fining iGiant, banning certain sales Brazil's government is freezing certain iPhone sales in the country and fining Apple for removing chargers from its smartphones, something officials there have declared a practice harmful to consumers, despite being presented as an act of environmental heroism. …  ( 4 min )

Plus $39 billion in subsidies for 'domestic' effort that will welcome foreign semiconductor players Leading foundry operators stand to benefit from a 25 percent investment tax credit (ITC) on domestic fab projects, according to a document published by the US Department of Commerce this week.…  ( 6 min )

Legislation also aims to tackle wage gaps around gender, race, and ethnicity California lawmakers passed a bill that aims to promote pay equity by requiring employers to post salary ranges with job listings in the state.…  ( 4 min )

FBI and CISA on-site to assist with incident response over Labor Day weekend Cybercriminals hit the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) over the holiday weekend with a ransomware attack that temporarily shut down email, computer systems, and applications.…  ( 5 min )

Hundreds of 'intentional' violations could cost Zuck and Co $30k each Facebook has been found guilty in Washington of breaking the state's strict campaign finance transparency laws – again – and was defeated in its attempt to get a judge to loosen those laws to favor it. …  ( 5 min )

Worok uses mix of publicly available tools, custom malware to steal info, gang active since 2020 A cyberespionage group has targeted government agencies and big-name corporations throughout Asia since at least 2020, using the notorious ProxyShell vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange to gain initial access.…  ( 5 min )

Meta set to the appeal the data protection authority's near $400m penalty Ireland's data protection authority has fined Instagram almost $400 million for mishandling children's data.…  ( 4 min )

By striking down Google and Facebook, the iMaker's transformation is complete Although Apple's sales pitch for the idea was protecting users' privacy, it appears the company's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) initiative has been kind to its wallet as well, pushing it to the top of the mobile app advertising market in the past year.…  ( 4 min )

Teams too big, operate in silos, lack subject matter experts and C-suite exec buy-in Public sector technology buyers have the lengthiest average buying cycle of any industry vertical in part due to a lack of vendor specific information on products often hampering the decision making process.…  ( 5 min )

Lloyd's defends stance as critics say policy tweaks make it less worthwhile to spend on premiums Critics unhappy about insurers excluding certain nation-state attacks from cyber policies should consider the alternative: higher prices, said a defiant Lloyd's of London.…  ( 6 min )

$50/user/month to bring cloud-like opex delights to midrange on-prem environments IBM has rediscovered IT as-a-service with a subscription service for its System I environment and the POWER servers that run it.…  ( 4 min )

Leadership believes path to recovery is through investing in times of crisis Chipmaker SK hynix intends to invest nearly $11 billion over the next five years on a new manufacturing plant in South Korea, showing confidence in the future despite the curent dip in demand for semiconductors.…  ( 4 min )

Hypercloud will be facing some stiff competition in the hyperconverged infrastructure space, say analysts Storage player SoftIron is extending its portfolio to the rest of the datacenter with the launch of a complete cloud infrastructure platform - a bold effort to take on better known brands in their own back yard.…  ( 7 min )

All except Italy, that is For the second year in a row, the UK is second worst in the G7 league of industrial nations for broadband speed, only faster than Italy, according to a report published today.…  ( 5 min )

Smartphone software set to link more services to patients despite privacy fears NHS Digital has awarded IBM a £52.4 million ($60.2 million) contract for supporting and developing the NHS App, which the UK government plans to make the standard way for health services to communicate with patients.…  ( 4 min )

To sell or not to sell... that is the national security assessment, decision delayed once more The UK government has asked for more time to make its final decision on whether to retroactively approve or block the sale of Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) company to Chinese owners.…  ( 4 min )

It’s an eight-bit affair for the Apple II, complete with Flying Toasters and many other upgrades Apple will on September 7th stage one of its live infomercials to launch products expected to include this year’s iPhone – complete with satellite messaging capabilities – plus wireless earbuds, an enhanced smart watch, and maybe even some new tablet computers.…  ( 4 min )

16-year-old feature request to fix it judged so hard it doesn’t offer bang for buck – to Atlassian After The Register covered the eleven years and counting wait for Atlassian to deliver custom domain names for its cloudy products, readers pointed out an even older open request: CONFCLOUD-7247 was filed on November 1st, 2006 and asks the software upstart to allow changes to the author of an existing page of its Confluence corporate Wiki.…  ( 5 min )

Maybe it’s putting the savings into discounts for Windows Server and M365 it's told the channel to go forth and sell? Microsoft has told its north American partners they can’t pay it with checks starting from December 1st.…  ( 4 min )

Also separatism, nationalism, and whether Big Tech does enough to police user-generated content India’s IT minister has picked a fight with Wikipedia after alleging that Pakistani entities edited a page describing a member of the men’s national cricket team in ways that suggest the player has separatist affiliations.…  ( 5 min )

Whether you’re spending $500 or $4,000 on components, we’ve picked out the perfect parts for your next PC build.  ( 73 min )

SteelSeries new Apex 9 TKL and Apex 9 Mini keyboards feature hot-swappable optical switches with adjustable 2-point actuation.  ( 66 min )

These are the best 4K gaming monitors available in 2022, including 144Hz, curved and HDR options.  ( 81 min )

GPU prices at the start of September show a continued downward trend, particularly on the top models. Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti has become almost affordable, and the RX 6900 XT now sits at just $700.  ( 64 min )

Our picks for the best ultrabooks (super thin and light notebooks), along with other premium laptops now.  ( 78 min )

It's large, expensive, and over the top! Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti is on sale at Best Buy.  ( 67 min )

YMTC becomes a 3D NAND flash memory supplier for Apple's products.  ( 59 min )

Here are the best Intel and AMD motherboards for all the recent processors. These boards offer great features and performance, according to our rigorous tests.  ( 79 min )

Users who buy an Arc A580, A750 or A770 GPU alongside a Core i5-12600KF or better (12th Gen only) before the end of the year to qualify for a games and apps bundle potentially worth $370+.  ( 60 min )

The best college laptops offer great battery life, portability and the power to tackle everything your major requires. Our list includes Windows PCs, Macs and some gaming systems for those who like to play when they aren't working.  ( 73 min )

A new board from Aaeon, the GENE-ADP6, offers Alder Lake processors and the chance to drive four screens from a tiny form factor.  ( 63 min )

Besides the color, Cooler Master's CryoFuze Violet thermal paste delivers 12.6 W/mK and is stable at a very wide range of temperatures. It's claimed to have a balanced viscosity for easy application and removal.  ( 60 min )

Here's an explanation of why we need quantum computing and all the details of how it works.  ( 64 min )

A new VRM cooling solution has been created that will work in almost every computer case featuring a rear chassis fan, and it's actually quite useful.  ( 60 min )

Our GPU prices index tracks graphics cards sales and prices on eBay. Prices have continued to fall over the past month, and the next-gen GPUs are on the horizon.  ( 64 min )

If you're running a local server, having a consistent IP can be helpful. Make sure your Pi has the same IP every time you boot it.  ( 61 min )

On the cusp of Ryzen 7000, AMD's Zen 2-powered Rzyen 3 4100 and Ryzen 5 4500 in an attempt to tackle Intel's Alder Lake Core i3.  ( 80 min )

A new docking station gives Steam Deck users access to a 2280 slot M.2 SSD for storage expansion and also connects to external displays.  ( 60 min )

Here are the best gaming monitors for PC available in 2022, from budget displays to 144Hz, 4K and curved.  ( 83 min )

Nvidia increases its share of the desktop GPU market despite inventory corrections and a decrease in quarterly revenue.  ( 60 min )

The Lenovo X13s is the first ThinkPad with an Arm processor. While it has long battery life and a silent, fanless design, performance isn't up to par with x86 notebooks, and Windows 11 still has a few compatibility issues.  ( 73 min )

Here's the Intel 13th-Gen Raptor Lake release date, benchmarks, specifications, pricing, and all we know about the new chip architecture.  ( 87 min )

There are lots of awesome monitor deals dropping every day! Here are the best offers worth your hard-earned money.  ( 66 min )

Masayasu Ito - Sony Interactive Entertainment's executive vice president of hardware engineering and operation, as well as lead engineer on both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 - is retiring on 1st October after 36 years with the company. Ito first joined Sony in 1986, where he initially worked on in-car audio equipment before joining the PlayStation division in 2000 to lead hardware engineering. Here, Ito oversaw the development of numerous key PlayStation products, including the PS3, the hugely successful PS4 - which went on to sell over 117 million units - and, starting in 2015, the PlayStation 5. Alongside Sony's flagship consoles, Ito also had a hand in many other notable PlayStation hardware releases, having created of the likes of the PSP, PS4 Pro, and PSVR headset. Read more  ( 15 min )

Ahead of this weekend's Ubisoft Forward digital showcase, a new report has claimed the event will offer a look at three previously unannounced Assassin's Creed titles - one set in Japan, another in 16th century Europe, and a third in China. Earlier this week, Ubisoft confirmed it would be 'unveiling the future' of the Assassin's Creed franchise during this Saturday's digital showcase, but stopped short of providing specifics. A look at the recently recently confirmed Assassin's Creed Mirage seemed a certainty, but a new report has suggested the publisher might in fact have a lot more its ready to share. According to relentlessly leaky (and usually reliable) journalist Tom Henderson, writing for Try Hard Guides, Ubisoft Forward's Assassin's Creed portion will indeed begin with a "deep dive" into Assassin's Creed Mirage. Read more  ( 16 min )

With God of War Ragnarök inching ever closer to its 9th November release on PlayStation, the pre-launch pre-amble keeps on coming, this time with a closer look at the dwarven realm of Svartalfheim in a new video. Svartalfheim is, of course, one of the Nine Realms at the heart of God of War's current Norse-themed saga, and one of three - alongside Vanaheim and Asgard - that were unreachable in the first game. Players will finally be able to complete the set in Ragnarök, though, as well as getting a chance to return to previously visited realms to explore new locations. Svartalfheim, like other realms, can be accessed via the gateway located at the centre of the Lake of Nine (frozen over in Ragnarök thanks to the onset of Fimbulwinter) and - as detailed in a new GameInformer video - will present players with plenty of dwarven ingenuity to explore, including mine pits, artificial water channels, and sprawling cities. Read more  ( 15 min )

Tencent is heavily investing in Ubisoft with a €300m investment in Guillemot Bros, the company run by Ubisoft's co-founders. Tencent now has a 49.9 percent stake in Guillemot Bros., which has the largest stake in Ubisoft. In turn, Tencent will bring some of Ubisoft's biggest franchises to mobile. Read more  ( 15 min )

Keanu Reeves is set to reprise the role of Johnny Silverhand in the forthcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion Phantom Liberty. It will be released in 2023 across Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Though details are light, it will focus on a specific district of Night City and continue V's story with a new cast and plot. Read more  ( 16 min )

The Callisto Protocol showed some gameplay to the public for the first time at Gamescom this year, with about three minutes of footage highlighting a bit of combat, a bit of stealth, and a slip-n-slide finish that ends with a bit of a crunch. Behind closed doors at the show, however, we saw a much longer version - albeit with the same stomach-churning finale - and had time to speak with the game's director and studio head Glen Schofield. Things begin with a jump - a scare as you open a door that then leads into a bit of one-on-one combat with one of The Callisto Protocol's more standard enemies. The twist here is that enemies in The Callisto Protocol can mutate. After you engage them in combat some tentacles will start spurting out of their torso. Shooting or otherwise battering them in the tentacles will put them down faster, the mutation acting as a kind of weak spot, but miss your fairly short window and those enemies will evolve, gruesomely, into much more resilient, aggressive opposition. Dodging becomes important - there was a lot of ducking, diving, dipping and dodging in this demo - while you club away at them with a kind of riot baton in melee, although if more than one mutated enemy starts coming at you, you'll struggle. "I think our combat is much more complex than we've made before," Schofield says, as opposed to how things were with the likes of Dead Space, this game's spiritual predecessor and the series Schofield created. "Especially with a sort of survival horror game - you've got a bunch of different weapons. I've always believed that survival horror doesn't mean you would just have one bullet, right? Survival horror, I [think] means: I've got a clip, but I still can't take them all out." Read more  ( 23 min )

Gundam Evolution, a free-to-play hero shooter set in the world of the popular anime, is set for release on Steam this month. The game will arrive on 22nd September in Europe, with a console release across PlayStation and Xbox consoles set for 1st December. It will feature 6v6 PvP matches across three objective-based game modes: Point Capture, Domination and Destruction. Check out the action below. Read more  ( 15 min )

A new trailer for the forthcoming duo Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is set to drop tomorrow. Keep an eye on the Pokémon YouTube channel at 2pm UK time for "the latest news". The game is set for release on 18th November, so expect more information to be divulged in the run-up to release. Read more  ( 15 min )

Microsoft has announced the next wave of games coming to Xbox Game Pass this September. Available today is the Disney farming life sim Disney Dreamlight Valley featuring a cast of well-known characters. The game is launching in early access available across a number of platforms, with Game Pass users getting access to exclusive cosmetics and some in-game currency (across cloud, console and PC). The character creator is good fun too. Read more  ( 15 min )

More evidence has emerged that a PC release of Returnal could be on the way. This time, it's courtesy of a GDC talk on VFX from Housemarque & Playstation Studios' Risto Jankkila and Sharman Jagadeesan. As Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia spotted, the game appears to be running on a PC dev kit and includes a debug readout. Read more  ( 15 min )

Tactical bullet hell RPG Grid Force - Mask of the Goddess is set for release on 15th September. The game comes from UK developer Dreamnauts Studio and features a diverse, all-female cast of characters. It will release first on Steam, followed by Xbox and Switch versions soon after. Read more  ( 15 min )

Storyboards for Alicia Vikander's scrapped Tomb Raider sequel have shown up online. These images show a planned storyline similar to one seen in Angelina Jolie's debut turn as Lara Croft, with Croft Manor being attacked by masked assailants. Shared by artist Jake Lunt Davies, the images show Lara's home on an atmospherically dark and stormy night. Meanwhile, in the grounds, several shady looking characters are depicted planning their infiltration of the manor. Read more  ( 15 min )

A group of Steam Deck fans have figured out how to support gyro controls in Wii U emulation, effectively turning Valve's portable PC into Nintendo's infamous Wii U GamePad. Steam Deck HQ is a fan-run site dedicated to helping others configure their decks and set up programs to get the most out of the portable PC. A newly-shared guide shows how to get the Steam Deck's gyro controls to work in Wii U emulation. Read more  ( 15 min )

Mario Kart Tour has made Nintendo an estimated $293m globally to become the company's second highest grossing mobile game. That's according to data from reliable app store analytics company Sensor Tower, from across both the App Store and Google Play store. The estimates follow the recent news that Nintendo will remove gacha elements from Mario Kart Tour, which allow players to spend money on randomised rewards. This will be replaced by a rotating item shop. Read more  ( 15 min )

Mike Fahey's bio on Kotaku read, "Lover of video games, keyboards, toys, snacks and other unsavory things." All of this is true, as any of his legion of commited readers could tell you. But in one of the all time great Fahey pieces, he offered an even better description: "I am a 6'6" man with a vivid imagination and strange thought processes." This is the Fahey that his readers truly knew - a gentle, sweet-natured giant with a brilliant mind and an eye for the angle that nobody else had thought of - a willingness to monitor a situation and just see where it went. Fahey died last week at 49 after a long illness. He was a generous, ingenious, and kind writer whose posts always left you feeling happier - and more curious about things - than you had felt when you started reading them. He did indeed love snacks and toys and keyboards, of which he reviewed plenty. He loved video games, which he covered with perceptiveness, originality, and great care. Read more  ( 13 min )

Toby Fox has confirmed that the next chapter of RPG Deltarune won't be out this year. The creator shared the news on his Twitter account, saying: "We won't be able to put out any new chapters of Deltarune this year." However, he does confirm that something is on the way to celebrate the anniversary of the second chapter and previous game Undertale next week. Read more  ( 15 min )

Hideo Kojima struggled to get live-action clips in Metal Gear Solid, not for technical reasons but because of a lack of contacts. In a series of tweets on his Japanese account, he shared some background information on the game celebrating the 35th anniversary of the series (thanks SiliconEra). Kojima wanted to push the realism of his fictional story using real war footage and, of course, the PlayStation console was able to play compressed film so this wasn't a technical limitation. Read more  ( 15 min )

Developer Asobo has revealed the cast for A Plague Tale: Requiem. Charlotte McBurney and Logan Hannan will be reprising their roles as Amicia and Hugo in the upcoming sequel. In addition to the returning actors, Kit Connor and Lucy Briggs-Owen have joined the cast as new characters Lucas and Beatrice. Read more  ( 15 min )

The Sims has been around for 22 years now, with even the fourth, and most recent, numbered entry being a venerable eight years old. My first time playing the original was a communal experience in the sixth form common room, crowded around a friend's laptop. We created a replica of said common room, populated it with facsimiles of friends and mostly left them to their own devices. One of them forgot where the toilet was and peed himself, then cried about it. The Sims 2? Not sure if I even played it. I was 21 when it was released in 2004 and, like much of my life back then, the memories are a bit fuzzy. Number three meanwhile was inspirational. Not so much the game itself, although many would say it's the high point of the series, but the writing about it. Robin Burkinshaw's "Alice and Kev", a blog chronicling the adventures of a homeless Sim and his daughter, really struck a chord and inspired me to try my hand at something similar. (It was rubbish.) Read more  ( 20 min )

Last week I watched Il Buco, or The Hole, the latest film from the Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino. It's mesmerising. With very little in the way of dialogue, Frammartino tells the story of a 1960s spelunking expedition that explored one of the deepest cave systems in the world. At first glance Il Buco seems filled with slightly trite opposites. The expedition comes from the urban north of Italy to the bucolic south, and one scene shows a cluster of kids gathered around a TV set that's broadcasting a news piece about the tallest building in the country, which is being constructed while the spelunkers are heading off in the opposite direction. But all of this is a distraction, I think. Or rather, it felt like Frammartino was throwing things in to the movie to allow you to ruminate and begin the process of looking for meanings. The bulk of the film is concerned with a more engaging case of opposites: an elderly shepherd spending his last days with his flock, while that hole slowly reveals its depths. Read more  ( 14 min )

Sea of Thieves is getting in the spirit of Talk Like a Pirate Day with a week of celebrations that'll include the swashbuckling multiplayer adventure's latest XP-boosting community event. The general festivities begin on Thursday, 15th September (running until Tuesday, 20th September), bringing a free Arrrgh! emote for anyone that logs in during the event, plus special Merchant Alliance fireworks, and discounts in the premium Pirate Emporium store. Additionally, players will be able to pick up a second free emote - Ranting Rogue - from the Pirate Emporium. The main event, though, is Season Seven's Community Day, running for 24 hours from 10am UTC on Sunday, 17th September. A "generous" Renown XP boost will be applied to all in-game activities for the duration, helping players work through this season's progression track more easily, and it'll be accompanied by a set of additional player-driven boosts via Twitter. Read more  ( 15 min )

Our local Debian user group gathered on Sunday August 28th1 at the very hackish Foulab for the August 2022 edition of our "Debian & Stuff" meetings. As always, the event was a success and we had lots of fun. Nine people showed up, including some new faces and people I hadn't seen in a while: On my side, although I was badly sleep-deprived 2, I still managed to be somewhat productive! One of the WiFi Access Points we use in our 4-apartment LAN had been boot-looping for a few weeks, after a failed sysupgrade to the latest version of OpenWRT. lavamind and I suspect the flash got corrupted in a way or another during the upgrade process... Lucky for us, this model has a serial port and runs U-Boot. After a bit of tinkering, some electrical tape and two different serial adapters3, we managed to identify the pin layout and got a shell on the machine. The device has a reset button, but since the kernel panic was happening too soon in the boot process, we weren't able to get into OpenWRT's failsafe mode this way. Once we had serial access, wiping the flash and re-installing OpenWRT fixed our problem. A quick ansible-playbook run later, the device was back to being usable and configured :) I was too tired to keep track of what others did, but I took some nice pictures of the pizza we got, and of this nice blow-up Tux wearing a Foulab t-shirt. Enjoy! As always, thanks to the Debian project for granting us a budget to rent the venue and to buy some food. Please excuse the late blog post, it's Harvest Season here and I've been quite busy. ↩ A bad case of wry neck kept me from sleeping properly for a while in August. ↩ As it turns out, serial connections work better when you use the right pins for TX and RX! ↩  ( 1 min )

History Before I start, the game I was talking about is called Cell To Singularity. Now I haven’t gone much in the game as I have shared but think that the Singularity it refers to is the Technological Singularity that people think will happen. Whether that will happen or not is open to debate to one and all. This is going to be a bit long one. Confession Time :- When I was sharing in the blog post, I had no clue that we actually had sessions on it in this year’s Debconf. I just saw the schedule yesterday and then came to know. Then I saw Guido’s two talks, one at Debconf as well as one as Froscon. In fact, saw the Froscon talk first, and then the one at Debconf. Both the talks are nearly the same except for a thing here or a thing there. Now because I was not there so my understanding…  ( 18 min )

I've been using Borg backup for a couple of years and it has seemingly worked very well for me. One difference I really appreciate from my previous arrangement (rdiff-backup) is the freedom to move large files or file hierarchies around (including between different filesystems) without provoking large backup incrementals. About a week ago I had my first real problem with Borg: backups started to fail with the following complaints: Creating archive at "/backup/borg::{hostname}-home-jon-{now:%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f}" segment 61916 not found, but listed in compaction data [ further, similar lines ] Local Exception Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/borg/archiver.py", line 4690, in main exit_code = archiver.run(args) File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-package…  ( 1 min )

Ubisoft will host its Ubisoft Forward showcase this weekend, and it seems the company plans to announce multiple Assassin's Creed projects. The company has already promised to discuss Assassin's Creed Mirage during the showcase, and it's possible it will touch upon Assassin's Creed Infinity as well. Ubisoft promised previously that additional information regarding "the future" of the Assassin's Creed franchise would be shared during Ubisoft Forward, and rumor has it the company will announce three more projects for the series. According to Tom Henderson, the Assassin's Creed games we will hear about have settings in Japan, 16th-century Europe during the witch hunts, and China. Read more  ( 15 min )

As we keep waiting for The Elder Scrolls 6 and – way before that – Starfield, us veteran Elder Scrolls fans keep wondering about where Bethesda might take the long-awaited sixth mainline entry of their big fantasy series. Of course, we are almost sure at this point about where it’s literally going: either High Rock or Hammerfell, maybe even both. But what about everything else? More importantly, what about the unavoidable rework of its moment-to-moment gameplay and RPG systems? And beyond those elements, how big can it reasonably be? As I discussed in my previous The Elder Scrolls 6 speculation piece, most folks are looking at Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls Online to fantasize about the next game. And that’s not a mistake, especially if we consider the ridiculous amount of Skyrim re-releases we’ve had in little more than a decade; that game is hugely important for Bethesda Game Studios. Even though Oblivion made the franchise mainstream thanks to its key role as one of Xbox 360’s early must-plays, Skyrim’s shadow is nearly impossible to escape and has shaped the entire open-world genre, RPG or not. Read more  ( 18 min )

CD Projekt RED has released a teaser trailer for the first expansion to Cyberpunk 2077. Titled Phantom Liberty, it's described as a spy-thriller expansion that will be set in an all-new district of Night City. Not much is shown in the teaser trailer, but the country looks like it's in trouble. As far as the storyline is concerned, well, the teaser doesn't give us much in the way of that either. Read more  ( 15 min )

Mario Kart Tour is a rather popular mobile game for Nintendo, so much so that it has generated around $293 million for the company. This is according to Sensor Tower (thanks GI.biz), which reports the figure was generated within three years of launch. It is a rather popular game, and during its first week of availability, Mario Kart Tour topped 20 million downloads across Android and iOS worldwide. Read more  ( 15 min )

Have you ever sat and listened to the bass riff in MGMT’s Electric Feel? I don’t think I ever realised, really, how integral to the song that little refrain is; the entire track is based around it! Ignore those hateful lyrics (hey, they’re a joke band, it’s fine), drink in those festival vibes, and let that bass sink into you… you feel it? Electric Feel is all about bass, I think. Why have I never learned to play that riff before? Well, I guess I’d never had someone show me how. Not until I was browsing the catalogues available at launch on Rocksmith+ and saw it there, nestled amongst things like Snarky Puppy’s excellent jam-rock meanderer, ‘Shofukan’, and The Eurhythmics’ seminal ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’. I was alive in the 00s, I’ve definitely been in some shit Midlands club singing along to Electric Feel – why not plug in my bass, and give it a go. Turns out, that riff is one of the most fun-to-play things I’ve committed to since picking up my bass guitar at the start of the year. I’ve only been playing the bass for nine months now, and whilst there are some transferable skills from my 17 years of guitar playing, there’s also a lot of new stuff to digest. Rocksmith+ not only gives me a fun new song to play – all mapped out, delicious, and easy-to-read with a genuinely intuitive UI – but it also identifies areas I might be struggling with and ushes me towards improving. Read more  ( 18 min )

There’s a new ad for God of War Ragnarok, featuring both Rick and Morty in a crossover I can safely say I wasn’t ready to see today. The game, launching on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on November 9 takes place in a mystical norse world filled with gods and monsters, one which the duo visited briefly all for the sake of a shiny new axe and a few gags. The ad itself does, admittedly, have a few jokes that made me giggle. Rick drunkenly summarising the base plot of many AAA narrative action adventures like God of War as journeys to make choices and face the consequences, as well as opening a massive golden chest to find the leviathan axe and “other unannounced upgrades” was just meta enough to get me on board. This isn’t the first crossover ad Rick and Morty have been a part of. Back in 2020, American fast food restaurant Wendy’s partnered with Rick and Morty to promote some of their breakfast menu, with humanoid breakfast baconator, honey chicken biscuits and an frosty-ccino rushing down and attacking the pair with pipes and bats. Fun stuff. Read more  ( 16 min )

Microsoft has announced a batch of games coming to Xbox Game Pass in September alongside a list of games leaving the service. Available today is Disney Dreamlight Valley: Founder’s Edition for cloud, console, and PC. Available on day one with Game Pass, members get early access, exclusive cosmetic rewards, and in-game currency for this hybrid between a life-sim and an adventure game featuring Disney and Pixar characters. In it, you arrive in the world of Dreamlight Valley tasked with restoring a once lovely village now desolate and filled with Night Thorns thanks to a mysterious event called The Forgetting. Opus Magnum is also available today for PC. This open-ended puzzle game from Zachtronics has you trying to master intricate, physical machinery and use it to create remedies, gemstones, deadly weapons, and more. Read more  ( 16 min )

Deltarune, the episodic pixel-art RPG from beloved creator Toby Fox, won’t have a new chapter release this year. This information comes straight from the creator himself, who posted an update on Twitter conveying the news to his 1.3 million followers. While this is of course sad news for those eager to experience more Deltarune as soon as possible, there’s some chaser good news that you can swallow. With the one-year anniversary of Deltarune chapter 2 coming up soon, Toby Fox has teased something special next week. As far as we know, development on Deltarune continues to go smoothly, with Toby Fox posting as much back in May and stating: “I'm getting more and more people to help recently, I have good feelings about it”, something that’s obviously great to see for fans of Fox’s continued output. Read more  ( 16 min )

Developer of Phasmophobia, Kinetic Games, is no stranger to updates and keeping players in the loop regarding them. The ghost-hunting game has been in Early Access for almost two years now, and it continues to get better each month as Kinetic liaises with its community. That said, Kinetic has listened once more to the thoughts and feedback of players and will soon be introducing a Custom Difficulty update to Phasmophobia. The previous roadmap shared for Phasmophobia didn't go so swimmingly, but not so much so that players were in turmoil over it. Kinetic says in their latest development preview via Steam, "Things didn't exactly go to plan! Originally the VR overhaul was planned to release earlier than April, allowing us to get knee-deep into Custom Difficulty's development. As it took longer, we pushed Custom back a couple of months and gave the community three smaller patches of content to fill the gap in content." Read more  ( 16 min )

It’s that time again - another video game world is under consideration by the design team at Lego, with a chance to become an official Lego product in stores the world over. This time, it’s a strong fit for brick-built worlds - with Terraria getting the Lego treatment. The Terraria set comes through Lego Ideas, a project ran by the Lego Group that allows fans to submit set designs and ideas to the company. Any set that garners 10,000 supporters in the Lego Ideas community gets sent up to a board of Lego designers and employees, who then assess the set’s suitability for a final release. If they decide to pick it up, it’ll later appear as a real-life set, in real-life shops, no longer just a fan creation, but made official. Making it to a final product from Lego Ideas is a particularly long shot, but the Terraria set has cleared the first major hurdle. In the realm of video games, both Lego Minecraft and Lego Sonic the Hedgehog began life as Lego Ideas submissions. In the case of Minecraft, a one-off Ideas set ultimately led to an entire series of Minecraft sets which are still going strong with new releases to this day. Read more  ( 17 min )

With Fedora 39 next spring it will likely replace DNF, libdnf, and dnf-automatic with the new DNF5 packaging tool and libdnf5 support library. DNF5 should improve the user experience and deliver better performance for dealing with software management on Fedora Linux...  ( 5 min )

Following the July disclosure of the Retbleed CPU security vulnerability affecting older processors and an AMD change made in August, here is a fresh look at the performance impact of the Retbleed mitigations on Linux, including if opting for the IBPB-based Retbleed mitigation, and the accumulated CPU security mitigation impact for Zen 2 with the flagship Ryzen 9 3950X processor.  ( 5 min )

GNU founder Richard Stallman has recently been working on crafting a GNU C Language introduction and reference manual...  ( 4 min )

LLVM 15 is now ready to roll as a big half-year update to this open-source compiler stack. LLVM 15.0, Clang 15.0, and other sub-projects have a lot to show for their summer 2022 accomplishments...  ( 6 min )

DRM-Misc manager Maarten Lankhorst with Intel's open-source graphics engineering team has submitted the latest weekly pull of new feature code to queue in DRM-Next ahead of next month's Linux 6.1 merge window...  ( 5 min )

Last month saw the Cemu project go open-source and introduce Linux support with Cemu 2.0 for this Nintendo Wii U emulator that has been in development for years. Cemu 2.0-1 is now available with Linux improvements...  ( 4 min )

OpenWrt as the embedded Linux distribution designed to run on wireless routers and other networking devices is out with its 22.03 stable release...  ( 4 min )

Mesa recently landed BPTC software fallback handling that is a requirement for OpenGL 4.2 support but BPTC is not natively supported by all GPU hardware, particularly on the embedded side. That software emulation support for BPTC is similar to what already has existed within Mesa for the ASTC and ETC formats too. A merge request is pending that also adds S3TC software fallback handling, which helps out some of the smaller, embedded GPU drivers too for getting more games running that are dependent on S3 Texture Compression...  ( 5 min )

The Edgerunners Update is out now for Cyberpunk 2077, along with the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion getting a reveal and a 2023 release date. Some fixes included for Steam Deck finally too.  ( 4 min )

The newest monthly bundle is here with Humble Choice and it is once again actually pretty good. Time to go over what to expect from it on Linux desktop and Steam Deck.  ( 4 min )

It's pretty staggering just how advanced Vintage Story is becoming as a survival game. It's still relatively unknown but in my eyes it already rivals many popular games and another huge upgrade is out now.  ( 4 min )

Ready for a different kind of city builder? The Wandering Village is coming into Early Access on September 14th.  ( 4 min )

Void Scrappers Prologue, the new free version of the bigger upcoming Void Scrappers is out now and I had a chance to try it before release and came away very impressed.  ( 4 min )

TFC: The Fertile Crescent is a really criminally overlooked pixel-art RTS that just got a major upgrade for all players.  ( 4 min )

Ready to check out more upcoming games? Shield Cat is a promising action-RPG adventuring collectathon with some wonderful pixel-art that blends in some great lighting and a new demo is out now.  ( 4 min )

Prodeus, the crowdfunded first-person shooter that blends together new and old design styles, will no longer be doing a Native Linux version and instead will ensure it works nicely with Proton.  ( 4 min )

Toby Fox frestar dock med en jubileumsöverraskning.  ( 6 min )

Nya Assassin's Creed Mirage i strålkastarljuset.  ( 6 min )

Release 2023, med en comebackande Keanu Reeves.  ( 7 min )

Lågoddsare: första glimten av expansionen.  ( 6 min )

Mirror_Hime möter Långben, Olof och de andra i nysläppta early access-versionen.  ( 6 min )

Early access-version ute nu.  ( 6 min )

Serien gör ett nytt free to play-försök.  ( 6 min )

Gearbox-chefen auktionerar bort plagg, pengarna går till stipendium för utvecklare.  ( 6 min )

Väntan på System Shock 3 är tröstlös. Vi slickar såren med System Shock-remaken.  ( 8 min )

Ubisoft råkade lägga upp spelets butikssida.  ( 6 min )

Men inte gratis, till skillnad från det färdiga spelet.  ( 6 min )

Men hur många?  ( 7 min )

Klassiskt beat 'em up eller något annat?  ( 7 min )

Wubalubadubdub, boy.  ( 7 min )

KDE Plasma 5.25.5 desktop environment is now available as the last update in the series with various bug fixes and improvements. All users are urged to update as soon as possible! The post KDE Plasma 5.25.5 Is Out as the Last Update in the Series, Improves Multi-Monitor Support appeared first on 9to5Linux - do not reproduce this article without permission. This RSS feed is intended for readers, not scrapers.

Efter skarp kritik från Riksrevisionen och till följd av rådande omständigheter ska teknikjättarnas serverhallar åter börja beskattas.  ( 6 min )

Med Nvidias GTC runt hörnet fortsätter Twitter att tissla och tassla om Geforce RTX 4000-serien. Den här gången uppges RTX 4080 lanseras i två upplagor.  ( 6 min )

I en djupdykning med Digital Foundry medger Intel att Kina-lanseringen inte gjorde succé och råder användare med äldre system att söka sig till konkurrenterna.  ( 6 min )

Skärmstorlekar som tidigare förknippats med TV-apparater blir allt vanligare på skrivbordet. Hur känner du för 40-tummare till datorn?  ( 5 min )

Linux is everywhere and everyone keeps talking about it. And that gives you FOMO. This article will help you decide if Linux is really worth trying.  ( 29 min )

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic  ( 2 min )

Intel details features and capabilities of Arc A770 8GB and 16GB boards, Arc 750 cards.  ( 60 min )

Save some space without sacrificing performance or looks with these compact PC cases.  ( 70 min )

Here are the best cases for custom PC builds. Our recommendations come from our tests of cooling and noise.  ( 75 min )

A GeForce RTX 3080 20GB from MSI has surfaced, proving Nvidia was at least thinking about selling a 20GB version in the past.  ( 64 min )

We've tested dozens of external hard drives and SSDs to pick out those that offer the best balance of performance, features and price.  ( 75 min )

Happy Labor Day everyone, and we hope you're getting to enjoy the day to the fullest. Today we've had a look around the internet for some of the best Labor Day deals on some of our favorite tech products.  ( 66 min )

We have seen GeForce models with the same model number but different memory configs before, but we think the lower-end RTX 4080 highlighted today will be an RTX 4070 (Ti) card.  ( 60 min )

USB 4 can do even better and support aggregate bandwidth of up to 120 Gbps.  ( 60 min )

These are the best air and liquid/AIO CPU coolers for all consumer systems, from small form-factor builds to overclocked big rigs.  ( 71 min )

It is interesting to see some performance uplift in the iGPU, but it is only about 2 or 3% faster than the UHD Graphics 770 in the Core i9-12900 processors.  ( 60 min )

Biostar’s B660M Silver is a well-appointed budget Micro ATX board that costs under $160. You get two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 sockets, four SATA ports, a premium audio codec, and a rear IO panel full of USB ports. There is stiff competition around this price, however.  ( 66 min )

There's a great deal on the WD SN850 1TB NVMe SSD (with Heatsink) for just $109 at Amazon right now. This is one of the best Gen 4 SSDs on the market.  ( 62 min )

The Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 is a kind of funny thing, a little plastic box with 15 plastic buttons. Each button has a tiny screen behind it, and when pressed can do any number of things - launching a program, changing to a new scene in a stream, adjusting your media volume, muting a microphone or sending out an alert. It's ideal for automation, giving you an easy way to trigger scripts or shortcuts that speed up the dreary parts of your job or your favourite game, and of course for game streamers it's invaluable. The MK.2 model normally costs £139, but today at Currys you can pick one up for £97 using the code GAMING30. Read more  ( 17 min )

The Samsung 980 Pro is one of the fastest NVMe SSDs on the market, making excellent use of the PCIe 4.0 spec, and today a 2TB model has been reduced to £184 on Amazon UK. The usual price for this model is £252, making this a sweet 27% reduction. Read more  ( 16 min )

The first gameplay footage of Katana Zero's free DLC expansion has finally sliced its way onto the internet. Developer Askiisoft released a near-ten minute slice of the DLC's first level over the weekend, showing off some of the ultraviolent delights we can expect to see when it eventually comes out. Have a watch of the level in full below (and apologies in advance to Jim, whose birthday wish of escaping any surprise intruders on his special day goes very much unheard). Read more  ( 17 min )

BioShock Remastered, BioShock 2 Remastered and BioShock Infinite have all fallen afoul of some questionably titled “quality of life” updates that publishers 2K Games released last week. These updates added a new 2K Launcher to all three BioShocks that appears when booting them up from Steam, but as found by GamingOnLinux, something about this launcher doesn’t take kindly to Linux-based operating systems. Linux-based operating systems like the Steam Deck’s SteamOS. As it happens, then, there's a chance – if you’re trying to play on Valve’s handheld PC – that all these updates will do is swing a bloodied 9-iron into the Deck’s ability to launch the affected games at all. Whoopsie doodle. Read more  ( 17 min )

Back in the mists of time of 2014, the original Tales From The Borderlands followed the classic Telltale episodic template, with a new chapter dropping every three or four months. Gearbox Software's upcoming New Tales From The Borderlands, however, is going to be doing things a bit differently. As our PAX West team found out over the weekend, NuTales will still be split up into an episodic-style chapter structure, according to director of production James Lopez, but you won't have to wait several months before you can play them altogether. Read more  ( 17 min )

A truly dynamic story is a goal game designers have strived toward for decades. Worldwalker Games' Wildermyth gets closer to that goal than most. In this spellbinding RPG, players guide bands of heroes through a lifetime of adventure, embarking on dozens of short, whimsical quests wherein they grow, age, and quite literally evolve, with the potential to transform into walking trees, celestial beings, and anthropomorphised crows. Wildermyth is an inspired example of narrative design, with some nifty tactical combat to boot. But when Nate Austin, his wife Annie, and his brother Doug began developing the game around eight years ago, the weight of emphasis between storytelling and combat was very much the other way around. Read more  ( 21 min )

A store page for The Division's upcoming free-to-play looter-shooter spin-off The Division: Heartland went up on the Ubisoft Store yesterday, revealing new details about the game's setting and multiplayer modes. The store page has since been taken down, but not before it was spotted by a few eagle-eyed Twitterers. Seeing as the next Ubisoft Forward showcase is scheduled for this coming Saturday, it’s entirely possible that we’ll be seeing some concrete deets about Heartland then. Read more  ( 17 min )

Images that allegedly show a Silent Hill 2 remake have been doing the rounds online over the weekend, featuring creepy nurses and the very shadowy back of protagonist James Sunderland’s head. They’re appropriately blurry, considering the series' penchant for mistiness, but still recognisably Silent Hill. Once again, it’s claimed that the game is being developed by Layers Of Fear studio Bloober Team. Read more  ( 17 min )

Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by a shrimp breeding game, some lovely places to explore, some bleak places to explore, and a plasma rifle with a surprising number of functions. Read more  ( 17 min )

The weekend is over and our third day of PAX West has come to a close. I feel like I say this every day, but it was another busy day today as we bounced around the PAX show floor. We played some of our favourite games from the whole event and also recorded two incredible interviews you won't wanna miss. Watch our daily round-up of everything we did for more info! Read more  ( 15 min )

In an interview opportunity that Liam and I are still reeling from, we had the chance to chat to the cast of Team Fortress 2 about their experiences lending their voices to one of the most iconic FPSs of all time. After watching yesterday's TF2 panel, we were incredibly excited to put our own questions to the TF2 squad. Ellen McLain (the TF2 announcer), Gary Schwartz (Heavy and Demoman), John Patrick Lowrie (Sniper) and Robin Atkin Downes (Medic) answered all our questions including how they each created the voices for the characters and if they would they return for a completely metaphorical release of Team Fortress 3 which - spoilers - was a resounding yes. Watch below for the entire interview. Read more  ( 16 min )

Kinetic Games has released an updated development roadmap for its deliciously spooky ghost hunting sim Phasmophobia, with the game's custom difficulty feature now set to release this month with plenty more on the way. As Kinetic explains in a new Steam post, the team has now revised its early access roadmap for 2022 and beyond to "more accurately represents what we achieved this year, and what we plan to do moving forwards" following a longer-than-expected development period for Phasmophobia's VR rework, which eventually arrived in April. Kinetic has released some smaller updates since then to keep players appropriately terrified but it's all go in September with the advent of Phasmophobia's Custom Difficulty update, which the developers says is "a big one". Read more  ( 16 min )

This Saturday brings another edition of Ubisoft Forward, showcasing the publisher's roster of upcoming games, and in the run-up to its arrival Ubisoft has shared more on what viewers can expect to see when tuning in, including a look at the future of the Assassin's Creed franchise. As previously announced, Ubisoft Forward gets underway on Twitch, YouTube, and Ubisoft's website this Saturday, 10th September, from 8pm in the UK. Those with a little more time on their hands can start even earlier, with a pre-show scheduled to run from 7.35pm BST, promising news on the latest seasons, characters, and content from Anno 1800, Brawlhalla, For Honor, The Crew 2, and more. Read more  ( 16 min )

The Torchlight series is returning - although this time as a free-to-play game for PC, iPhone and Android devices. An early Steam version of the game is available to download now, as part of a closed beta test before a full launch next month, some time in October. (You can request access via its Steam page.) There's a whiff of Diablo Immortal to Torchlight Infinite, which has numerous ways to spend money within the game. Monetisation will include a season pass, monthly pass, auction house and premium currency bundles. Spending and progress will be reset at the end of the current beta, though the amount you spend will then be granted back when the game fully arrives. Read more  ( 15 min )

This week's DF Direct is somewhat different than the usual show - a while back, Intel approached us, asking to be featured on a future episode to talk about its Arc graphics line. At the same time, Intel Fellow Tom Petersen, having seen our extensive image quality comparisons in our FSR 2.0 God of War video, was also keen to see the firm's own XeSS machine learning-based upscaling technology put through its paces in a similarly rigorous fashion. That work is still ongoing and due later this week, but today I'm pleased to share the DF Direct Intel special, filmed in Berlin last week - not least because it sees Petersen addressing all of the concerns we've had about Arc over the last few months. I'd recommend watching the video through because we've got a lot of ground to cover, kicking…  ( 18 min )

Sega's Mega Drive Mini 2 retro console is now available to pre-order in Europe, so get in quick if you don't want to miss out. The console will release on 27th October and the included 60 titles from both the Mega Drive and Mega CD consoles have now been fully revealed, including two that were previously unreleased. As reported last month, the console will have a tenth of the supply compared to the previous retro console in North America, so stocks are expected to be limited. Read more  ( 15 min )

There's a mod for Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered on PC that lets you play as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It seems that the Turtle brothers aren't satisfied with their own success with Shredder's Revenge have made their way into Spider-Man's territory. Created by SpaceDasher, the mod lets you choose between Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello or Michelangelo to swing around as. Or maybe that should be swim around as? Read more  ( 15 min )

The Last of Us Part 1 only released a few days ago for the PlayStation 5, but fans are already dissecting, and by extension discussing, every inch of its world. One such discussion taking place focuses on a potential new IP from Naughty Dog, that many believe will have a fantasy theme. This all started after several posters with fantasy-like elements were spotted adorning the game's walls. The posters in question, which can be seen below, show images of a Pegasus-like horse, a dragon, and a female warrior: Read more

The Lord of the Rings' primary antagonist Sauron has come to Elden Ring thanks to a new armour mod. The mod comes from MaxTheMiracle, and reskins the player with Sauron's black armour and humanoid figure seen in the likes of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film adaptations (but without that imposing height). This mod is still in its early days, but has been released to coincide with Amazon's Rings of Power series. As such, the current weapon moveset used within this mod is borrowed from another mod, as work on it continues behind the scenes. Read more  ( 15 min )

Matt Booty, Head of Microsoft Studios, has assured fans that The Initiative's Perfect Dark game is in good shape despite working with Crystal Dynamics. Speaking at PAX West last week, Booty discussed the increased prevalence of multiple developers working together on new games. "How we make games is evolving," said Booty. "The idea of a single team under one roof really doesn't happen that often anymore." Read more  ( 15 min )

An upcoming Crash Bandicoot fan game will bring the dancefloor to Wumpa Island in a remake of one of the series' lesser-known mini-games. Crash'N'Dance is being developed by indie dev Fierce the Bandit, who posted a short video of their current progress. The fan-made project is a rhythm game where players must hit button prompts in time to the music. Fake Crash will pop up on the screen sporadically in an attempt to distract you, but if you're successful, Crash will perform his signature boogie and get a shiny crystal. Read more  ( 16 min )

A recent "Quality of Life" update for Bioshock Infinite on Steam has added a new launcher, which includes a "Store to purchase new content". This update went live over the weekend, and also added an in-game account linking option. However, despite being labelled as a "quality of life" update, this move by publisher 2K has left some fans unhappy, with several stating the game is now broken. Read more  ( 15 min )

Details of Heartland, the upcoming free-to-play The Division spin-off, have popped up via Ubisoft's own store. A listing for The Division Heartland is still available, with its client listed as available to download on PC "soon". The store page also hosts various screenshots of the under-wraps shooter, and describes it as a "free-to-play survival-action multiplayer shooter set in small-town Middle America". Read more  ( 15 min )

Ghostwire: Toyko is one of the exceedingly small number of video games that I've been bothered to grab all the trophies for. It wasn't a fun Platinum either as, after about 10 hours in, the game gets rather repetitive and the trophy hunt becomes an absolute mind-numbing grind for collectibles. So why did I do I bother then? You might be thinking. Well, simply put, I absolutely loved the look and the feel of Tango Gameworks' version of Shibuya. The way the rain soaked streets reflect the neon signs is mesmerising to me. The gloriously detailed environments makes it feel like you really are in a real, living city in the moments after its inhabitants were spooky-raptured. It's such a beautiful space to inhabit and as a bit of a Japanophile who recently spent his honeymoon wandering around parts of Shibuya that feature in the game, playing Ghostwire: Tokyo is also a great way to soak up the vibe of the city and indulge in some memories of my trip. But now, thanks to an upcoming mod from master VR modder Luke Ross, I'm able to experience the world of Ghostwire: Tokyo like I was actually there and it's by far my most preferred way to play the game. Want to see what all the fuss is about? You can watch me lose my mind over petting Shiba Inu's in VR in this week's VR Corner (below). Read more  ( 16 min )

It turns out that Retro Studios' Zelda project progressed to the point where it had working gameplay - but it just wasn't very good. Retro Studios - the developer behind the Metroid Prime series - was long-rumoured to have worked on a canned Zelda game and in 2020 concept art of the project was discovered. Now, YouTube channel Did You Know Gaming has uncovered more information about the project. Read more  ( 16 min )

Splatoon 3 has already leaked online, including major spoilers for the game's story mode. We won't be posting any spoilers here so if you want to stay spoiler-free before the game's official release, be wary when searching for Splatoon 3 on YouTube or social media. Splatoon 3 will release on 9th September, but leaks were being posted online almost a week before that date. Read more  ( 15 min )

The next Assassin's Creed game, set in Baghdad, will feature crowds of people on its streets for the first time since the widely-panned Paris-set Unity. That's according to a fresh round of leaked information on the upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage from well-established Ubisoft leaker j0hnathan, who has now had his Twitter account suspended. Among those details includes the fact that Baghdad will be divided into four separate zones, each with a boss to defeat, but also be surrounded by a desert area, oases and rivers. Read more  ( 15 min )

In anticipation of God of War Ragnarök's release, a new promo starring Rick and Morty has been revealed. American adult-oriented nighttime cable television channel Adult Swim shared the new ad on its Rick and Morty social feeds. The clip shows eccentric scientist Rick shaving his head and branding himself with Kratos' iconic red facial tattoo. He then proceeds to hand his grandson Morty a toy bow and arrow, before shoving him through a portal to the Nine Realms. Here, Rick gets his hands on Kratos' Leviathan Axe and "other unannounced upgrades" as Morty tries to fend for himself (rather unsuccessfully) in the hostile world he suddenly finds himself in. It ends with Rick finding a boat, informing the overpowered Morty that he will have to row as Rick doesn't want to get his new axe wet. You can watch it for yourself below. Read more  ( 15 min )

A new Elden Ring manga reimagines the game as a comedy. Or maybe your playthrough was a comedy all along? There's certainly a farcical element to all the constant dying. The manga comes courtesy of Kadokawa - FromSoftware's parent company and a huge publisher of manga. Read more  ( 15 min )

Jack Move. Jack Move. Here is a phrase that tickles somewhere, deep in the back of the brain, buried under boxes and old coats. Wasn't someone...down for a Jack Move? I want to say William Gibson. One of the early ones - or maybe one of the present-day ones? Googling will have to wait, because here is Jack Move, with a demo out on Steam now and a release planned for the 8th of September. Turns out we're all down for a Jack Move. And I reckon I was right about Gibson, because Jack Move is a cyberpunk JRPG, albeit one with modern sensibilities, which means the pixel-art is smooth and Treasure-textured and the action is implausibly brisk. Straight up: this is a lovely thing. Lovely from the way that you PATCH items rather than use them, to the way that you have stats for Sass and Guts and Grok. Read more  ( 16 min )

After a series of alpha and beta releases over the past several months, out this past week is the first release candidate of the upcoming PHP 8.2...  ( 4 min )

Being merged a few minutes ago into Mesa 22.3 is the Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" support for the recently ratified mesh shader extension...  ( 5 min )

While there has been talk and plans for Vulkan API support within Blender, currently there are no active developers working on it and much work remains before it would be ready for end-users...  ( 5 min )

A new patch floated by a Google Chrome OS / Linux kernel engineer would enable support for the Intel-led Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT) by default as part of the standard kernel configuration for this security feature...  ( 4 min )

Originally carried as a patch against Ubuntu 22.04 for its GNOME 42 desktop and continued to be maintained against GNOME 43 for the upcoming Ubuntu 22.10 is supporting dynamic triple buffering with the Mutter compositor. This has allowed Ubuntu's GNOME desktop environment to perform better for some systems albeit not upstream in GNOME...  ( 5 min )

Following the OpenMandriva Lx ROME Technical Preview release from earlier this summer, a "silver candidate" for OpenMandriva Lx 5.0 ROME is now available for testing...  ( 4 min )

Microsoft kommer med lugnande besked.  ( 7 min )

Femman släpptes 2006.  ( 6 min )

Jobbar just nu med System Shock-remaken.  ( 7 min )

Desperation och paranoia. Det Xcom-lika Aliens-spelet sätter stämningen direkt.  ( 8 min )

Spelläget som inte blir av.  ( 6 min )

Ännu ett tecken på att GTA VI-avslöjande närmar sig?  ( 7 min )

O-dejliga danska dilemman.  ( 9 min )

Även om showen inte ens har utannonserats än.  ( 6 min )

Och många spelare är nu skuldsatta i spelet.  ( 7 min )

Och de fortsätter på skräcktemat.  ( 6 min )

Kan Gearbox nå Telltales höjder?  ( 7 min )

Och kastknivar!  ( 7 min )

You've heard this before right? As of today, Valve will be sending out even more emails each time to invite people to purchase their reserved Steam Deck.  ( 4 min )

Love puzzle games? Check out the new Native Linux release of SiNKR 3. It's a wordless puzzle game that needs you to hook and pull various objects and it's quite a gem.  ( 5 min )

The Kubuntu Focus team recently announced the Kubuntu Focus NX, a small but surprisingly mighty little Linux desktop.  ( 4 min )

Need more storage space for your Steam Deck when docked up to a TV or monitor? JSAUX have returned with their next-generation Steam Deck Dock and it sounds pretty interesting.  ( 5 min )

Nearly a whole year after the release, the point and click psychological horror detective adventure game Saint Kotar now has a Native Linux version available.  ( 4 min )

Scathe is a brand new FPS from Damage State and Kwalee that seemed interesting from some previews before release. I took a look and did not come away impressed. You could say I'm being scathing of this one.  ( 5 min )

Apparently now a Quality of Life Update means adding a launcher to existing games and breaking them, if you're 2K that is. Here's how to skip the launcher on BioShock Remastered 1 & 2 and BioShock Infinite.  ( 5 min )

Can tech hold its own among an overflowing in-tray? Former foreign secretary Liz Truss has been voted in as the UK's next prime minister – at least by about 80,000 Conservative Party members – and will face a barrage of policy decisions. Questions over the cost of living and energy crises will top the agenda, but tech policy also needs her attention.…  ( 5 min )

From the department of 'what fresh hell?' Weddings already suck, and the tasteful wedding is becoming ever rarer. If the ceremony is not at a Victorian folly that costs more to book than a normal person's annual salary, you could well be in for a different kind of statement.…  ( 4 min )

Launch postponements also a part of the writeoff as company pins hopes on SpaceX OneWeb has taken a $229.2 million hit after it cancelled launches from Russia's Baikonur facility, and a number of its low Earth orbit satellites that were waiting to be sent to space were not returned.…  ( 4 min )

Also, Microsoft’s one-click TikTok trick, a 14-year old Aussie cracks ASD encryption in an hour, and more In brief  NATO officials are investigating after criminals put up some data for sale on dark forums that they claim is "classified" information stolen from European missile maker MBDA.…  ( 8 min )

SLS rocket is a mix of old and new NASA's Space Launch System might look like a mishmash of heritage Space Shuttle parts but it's all new hardware, and the team who built the twin boosters and engines have been talking about the challenges of bringing designs from the 1970s into a lunar future.…  ( 7 min )

Culture secretary talks up pre-Commons reading as UK waits to hear who new leader will be On the day the UK is set to appoint its new prime minister, digital and culture secretary Nadine Dorries is introducing legislation in Parliament she promises will “drop unnecessary box-ticking and measures stifling British businesses.”…  ( 5 min )

We trawled through the licensing terms and spoke to the vendors so you don't have to Feature  For developers, there is no debate. The future of the database is open source. A glance at the 2022 Stack Overflow survey of around 70,000 code-wranglers shows nearly all pros use one of the two leading open source RDBMSes, PostgreSQL (46.5 percent) or MySQL (45.7 percent), although they use other systems as well.…  ( 18 min )

Just one big GUI mess Opinion  The sight of a former executive laying into their old company is rarely less than delicious. And when that company is Microsoft, the exec is head of user experience, and the complaint is about the solid slab of sadness that is the Windows 11 Start menu? This calls for not just regular salted popcorn, but truffle-oil popcorn on a silver platter carried in by a butler.…  ( 6 min )

Exchange Online face Halloween deadline Don't say you weren't warned.…  ( 6 min )

Windows Defender update fixed the mess after a weekend of false positive weirdness Microsoft appears to have fixed a problem that saw its Defender antivirus program identify apps based on the Chromium browser engine and/or Electron JavaScript framework as malware, and suggest users remove them.…  ( 4 min )

‘I had a sharp new suit and a misplaced sense of confidence’ – and made a costly mistake Before you shell out big bucks to engage the services of consultants, perhaps consider this week’s instalment of Who, Me? and the adventures of a reader we’ll call “Norman” for the duration of this tale.…  ( 5 min )

Pilot scheme running in Europe, APAC, sees ad giant still take a four percent cut Google has started a test of alternative payment systems in its Play store.…  ( 4 min )

Escalation of targeted threats is an ‘emergency’ that required ‘dangerous’ decision ‘we are not comfortable with’, says CEO Cloudflare has decided to stop providing its services to Kiwi Farms, just days after defending the site’s eligibility for its services.…  ( 5 min )

PLUS: Australia mints a physical crypto-coin; Alibaba Cloud claims world's biggest DC; India’s space airbags; and more China will conduct a three month blitz to cleanse the local internet of "rumors and false information".…  ( 7 min )

You aren't alone in wanting a new Fable trailer, as Microsoft Studios head Matt Booty wants to show it off, but Playground Games is understandably not quite ready yet. The new Fable was revealed back in 2020, but as with many games these days, it was a cinematic trailer, so no gameplay to speak of. Who knows where it might be in development, but based on what Booty has said recently on a panel at PAX West, it still needs some more time in the metaphorical oven. "Part of my job is giving air cover to the team," Booty explained. "They don't want to show stuff early before it's ready to go, but if there's one game where that's kind of flipped around, where every time I see something I say, 'We should show this', it's Fable. Because there's a lot of cool stuff." Read more  ( 16 min )

Rare’s legendary N64 first-person shooter, Goldeneye, marked its 25th anniversary last month. However, at the risk of raising blood pressure worldwide, I’ll dare to say that it’s not the jewel in the British developer’s FPS crown. That accolade goes to its spiritual successor: Perfect Dark. With the announcement of a series reboot at The Game Awards in 2020, Microsoft’s newest studio, The Initiative, has been given the momentous task of bringing the franchise to modern audiences, with a little help from Tomb Raider industry veterans Crystal Dynamics. Ignoring for a moment that The Initiative sounds concernedly like one of the shady organisations that Joanna Dark would be taking down, the new triple-A studio has its work cut out in creating a debut title that manages to deliver the nostalgia that long-time series fans will want, as well as enough modernity to satisfy new players — something that Rare failed to do with Perfect Dark Zero back in 2005. If they want to be in with a shot of satisfying both audiences, they’ll need to learn from Rare’s mistakes. Firstly, we need a cool-as-heck story. Very little has been shared about the reboot so far, but the cinematic trailer confirms the theme of ecological disaster. We see Earth from space, rife with storms, fires, and floods. We’re told of corporations offering “solutions”, but series fans will know that corporations have long played complex roles in Perfect Dark’s lore. We also know by the end of the trailer that dataDyne is still a featured antagonist, as the camera pans across dead soldiers to show Joanna standing atop a dataDyne super-structure, looking out over a storm ravaging the Great Pyramids. Setting itself deeply within the fictional side of sci-fi, Perfect Dark has always played with the idea of an alternative future. Read more  ( 19 min )

The Last of Us Part 1 is out and firmly in the hands of players across the world. A great overhaul of an already brilliant game (as per our review), many are jumping in and scouring the world in Joel’s shoes once again. However, a secret recently found in this new version of the Naughty Dog 3rd person classic has some curious about the next big IP from the studio. In the new game, players can track down and take a look at pin boards inside a pitch-black building. With the help of a flashlight, you can see several pieces of fantastical art featuring dragons, a variety of fantasy characters, and other mystical creatures and settings. Now, there’s been no word on what the team at Naughty Dog are working on next, aside from the Last of Us multiplayer title they teased earlier this year. However, the studio has a history if littering their games with hints towards future titles. Uncharted 3 famously featured an easter egg pointing towards The Last of Us before its official reveal, so the likelihood that this is a similar situation isn’t nil. Read more  ( 16 min )

Even though split-screen co-op has been cancelled for Halo Infinite, players have worked out a way that lets them do it anyway. Last week, 343 Industries provided a roadmap for Halo Infinite that promised players the Forge and Campaign co-op would be coming in November. Only downside is that split-screen co-op had been cancelled in the process, obviously leaving some players that were hoping to live out their youth once more disappointed. But it seems that some players have found a bit of a workaround thanks to a menu glitch. As spotted by Eurogamer, French Halo community Halo Creation shared a video that shows a menu glitch that allows you to play the game in split-screen co-op. The Twitter account for the community has shared a helpful video of the glitch in action, which was discovered by Halo player Alexis B., and all the steps you need to follow. Read more  ( 16 min )

The game might not be out until the end of the week, but plenty of Splatoon 3 gameplay is already appearing online. Street dates of games can often be broken by a day or so, whether it comes to a delivery service just getting a package somewhere early, or a store being a bit cheeky and letting a friend buy a copy a day early. Unfortunately for Nintendo, a tonne of gameplay has already leaked online just under a week before the game is out week, September 9. As spotted by Kotaku, gameplay has been appearing all over the Splatoon subreddit, though the subreddit is removing any posts that shows anything that hasn't been previously revealed in an official capacity, considering that it would technically be a spoiler. This is the subreddit's general rule for spoilers anyway, so if you're worried about visiting the subreddit post-release, there shouldn't be any spoilers to be found. Read more  ( 15 min )

Some new details have emerged on Retro Studios' cancelled Zelda game that would have starred Sheik as the main character. Retro Studios is best known for the Metroid Prime series these days, but did you know that at one point in time it was working on a Zelda game that would have put Sheik in the leading role? Did You Know Gaming knows, and it has recently put out a video spoke with one of the programmers that worked on the project. Concept art for the game was released back in 2020, with the game supposedly intending to have more of a darker tone that would tell an origin story of the Master Sword, set in a timeline where Link fails to beat Ganon in Ocarina of Time. As a result of that artwork being released, programmer Paul Tozour was willing to talk about it, as well as an anonymous source, though it didn't sound like a great game. Read more  ( 16 min )

Speaking with VGC, studio director at Supermassive Games Will Byles disclosed that the studio's next big horror title is already in development. Supermassive Games first became renowned for Until Dawn, even winning a BAFTA award for the narrative-driven slasher game. Then came The Dark Pictures Anthology, a series of smaller, episodic narrative horror tales for players to embark on. Most recently, however, was The Quarry; another full-blown teen slasher in the form of a cinematic game, well worth the 4/5 we gave it in our review. Read more  ( 16 min )

The lead up to World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King Classic launch is well underway, with pre-patch servers up and running for close to a week now. This, in theory, lets players jump in and gear up a new character in preparation for our adventure to the frozen north, but humongous queue times across several servers have made this difficult for some players to get their adventure started in earnest. This issue is affecting two types of servers present in Classic WoW. The first are the long-standing servers that have maintained a large population since Classic first launched back in 2019, like Grobbulus in the EU region. However, newly-created Fresh servers are also suffering. These new servers allow everyone to start playing totally empty-handed with others, without inflated economies or pre-existing fortunes muddying things. Frustration and a healthy amount of joking around the topic can be found in heaps. Looking at the Classic WoW Reddit, numerous posts from players expressing their doomer outlook on the situation are present, listing out exorbitant queue times for their chosen servers, as well as some taking the plunge into less popular servers in order to kick their levelling journey into gear. Read more  ( 17 min )

Elden Ring is full of hidden areas, obscure bosses, and entire communities you may not get to see if you don't venture too far off the beaten path. One of the more unique are the Ancestral Followers, who can be found deep underground in the Siofra River Bank. The Followers worship the Ancestor Spirits, and can be seen gathering around its remains performing their rites. By following a simple mini-game, you can travel to the realm of the Ancestor Spirit and take it on in a boss fight. All that is well and good, but the fight itself plays quite differently from all the other fights in Elden Ring. Most players who fought the Ancestor Spirit bosses in the game felt that they got a slightly different experience from the rest. Read more  ( 16 min )

Over the weekend, VGC reporter Andrew Marmo took to Twitter to share some images that caused many a Silent Hill fan to be on the edge of their seat once again. The images are reportedly shots - albeit very poor-quality ones - of an upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team. Now, we’re aware that Bloober Team are working with Konami given that the pair entered a partnership during summer last year. Just a month following that announcement, rumours began to emerge that Bloober Team was working on a new Silent Hill title. Bloober’s CMO, Tomasz Galikowski, took part in an interview with IGN to clear the rumours up. Although, he ultimately left fans with more questions. The CMO told IGN that Bloober had applied for two projects with Konami, respectively codenamed Dum Spiro and Black. Read more  ( 17 min )

Blending Māori knowledge into federally funded crayfish research makes for better science.  ( 6 min )

The best ThinkPad qualities are sadly diluted, but performance is excellent.  ( 6 min )

A study on the consequences of becoming a monk related to evolutionary fitness.  ( 7 min )

Testpiloten Björn Endre tar sig an Komplett Khameleon 12i Slim, en bärbar dator som kombinerar en tunn design med utmärkta komponenter.  ( 14 min )

Inför höstens grafikkortlanseringar laddar Seasonic upp med den nya nätaggregatsserien Vertex, vilken har en 16-pins 12VHPWR-kontakt som kan leverera upp till 600 W.  ( 6 min )

Efter misslyckat försök att fimpa myndigheters faxmaskiner utropar digitaliseringsminstern krig mot disketter i offentlig sektor.  ( 6 min )

I EU-kommissionens senaste förslag återfinns krav på tillverkare att erbjuda 15 olika reservdelar i upp till 5 år. Därtill ställs högre krav på batterier.  ( 6 min )

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic  ( 2 min )

No content preview  ( 1 min )

It's the dawn of day three here at PAX West, and what better way to wake us up than play the incredibly chaotic demo build of Friends VS Friends. We loved the trailer from Gamescom and Liam even chose it for his bestest pick in our Gamescom round-up video, so our expectations were high, and after playing a quick match at the Raw Fury booth, Brainwash Gang's blood-pumping deck-building FPS shot straight to the top of our favourite things we've seen here at PAX so far. If you've not heard of Friends VS Friends, check out the game's trailer first (its incredibly slick animation is super cool, highly reccomended for your peepers) then watch our interview with Brainwash Gang developer Edu Verz who talked all about the game's development. Watch it below: Read more  ( 16 min )

It's been one heck of a busy day for team RPS on day two of PAX West. It's now the weekend so the show floor was significantly busier, but not enough to keep us from getting our mitts on some games. That's right, we actually played some games today! Have a click on the video below were we break down the day's activities and also to see us get booted out from the show floor when it closed at 7. Here's today's daily round-up: Read more  ( 15 min )

Today's PAX West interview is with the one and only Ron Gilbert, series creator of the iconic point-and-click adventure series, Monkey Island. We are big fans of Monkey Island here at RPS, so after watching him guest speak on the Adventure Games PAX panel today, we got a chance to chinwag with Gilbert and to chat about his upcoming comeback to the series with Return to Monkey Island. Gilbert was lovely enough to tell us all about the next game in the Monkey Island saga - what it was like to return to Monkey Island's world after so long, what we can expect from the puzzles, and snippets of the game's story. Watch below to see the interview in its entirety and make sure you watch to the end to see my impression of a pirate - you won't wanna miss that. Read more  ( 16 min )

It's day two of PAX West and to kick off our second day of game events and demos we got hands-on with a build of Neowiz's Pinocchio RPG, Lies of P. The gameplay demo caused quite a stir when it was at Gamescom earlier this year, so we made it one of our priorities to check it out here in Seattle. Neowiz are not actually at PAX so there wasn't anyone on the team to give us some behind-the-scenes info, but I got stuck into the demo for a solid 30 minutes, brawling with the game's angry robot lads that roamed the city's blood-washed cobbled streets. Overall, I had a great time with the demo. Yes, it is incredibly similar to Bloodborne in both its combat and environments but there are plenty of other elements that steer it away from FromSoftware's horror-filled gothic RPG. If you want more details instead of that short summary then check out our video below where I talk about my time with the build, and about having my arse kicked by giant mechanical automatons. Enjoy! Read more  ( 15 min )

Linus Torvalds just released the fourth weekly release candidate of Linux 6.0 in time for some US Labor Day holiday weekend testing...  ( 4 min )

A change queued up as part of the "x86/mm" TIP changes expected to land for Linux 6.1 will now have the default kernel configuration warn at kernel boot time around any W+X mappings that pose a security risk...  ( 5 min )

The release candidates are out today for the GNOME Shell and Mutter updates ahead of this month's GNOME 43 desktop debut...  ( 5 min )

Mesa's Radeon Vulkan driver "RADV" has added support for compatibility with GPUOpen's Radeon Raytracing Analyzer...  ( 5 min )

KDE's Kaidan app has been in development for a number of years now as a Jabber/XMPP chat client built around Kirigami and Qt Quick. Kaidan has been under active development and formally became a KDE project in 2019. It's newest ambition is now working out encrypted audio and video calls...  ( 4 min )

GravityMark 1.70 has been released as the multi-API graphics benchmark developed by Tellusim Technologies that was started by one of the former Unigine engine developers...  ( 5 min )

GNU Grep 3.8 was released today for this commonly-used command-line utility for search plain text data. With the GNU Grep 3.8 it's now made more clear that if you are still relying on the egrep and fgrep commands, it's past due for switching to just grep with the appropriate command-line arguments...  ( 5 min )

Böjbara skärmar och färska processorer är de största händelserna när startskottet för teknikhösten 2022 ljuder. Sätter du full pott?  ( 5 min )

Turbofrekvenser och andra specifikationer trängs i de tabeller som Wccftech nu publicerar, som i mångt och mycket återupprepar tidigare rykten.  ( 6 min )

Founder's Edition-versionen av Geforce RTX 3000 kan göra återbesök i aningen biffigare utförande, när RTX 4000-serien debuterar.  ( 6 min )

Windows Phone är officiellt död och begraven, men sett till mjuk- och hårdvara var det egentligen inga fel på Microsofts plattform. Söndagsvideon sammanfattar vad som gick snett.  ( 5 min )

The Chinese forum poster shared an image of the GeForce RTX 3090 Super alongside a GPU-Z info page which reports the card as a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.  ( 59 min )

Chinese content creator pitched Intel's upcoming Core i9-13900K engineering sample (ES) against a Core i9-12900K.  ( 63 min )

We wade into the endless debate: Who makes the best CPU, AMD or Intel? Here's the blow-by-blow in ten categories.  ( 95 min )

Our RAM benchmark hierarchy ranks memory kits of all frequencies and capacities for any budget.  ( 69 min )

On paper, the Ssupd Meshroom S looks like the most versatile SFF case ever. But it’s expensive at $160, and complicated to build in if you veer from a traditional ITX layout.  ( 67 min )

The Promise87 is unique and excellent. It doesn’t come cheap and lacks backlighting that could make it even better, but Wuque has delivered an excellent boutique typing option for keyboard enthusiasts.  ( 74 min )

Here are the gaming laptop deals we've seen.  ( 63 min )

Whether you're looking for PC components, peripherals or prebuilt systems, these are the best deals on tech.  ( 70 min )

Konami's much-talked about "unannounced game" could be a new Suikoden title. A renewed trademark for the game – filed back in July, but only recently spotted – has popped up in Mexico, leading some to speculate that if Konami's upcoming TGS spot doesn't involve Castlevania, Metal Geat Solid, or Silent Hill, then it just may be about a new installment of the classic RPG series. The filing – spotted by posters on Reddit and shared at ResetEra – tells us that the filing was made at the end of July and… well, not much else, actually. But it's certainly coincidental timing, isn't it, particularly as the last main Suikoden title released way back in 2006. Read more  ( 15 min )

Earlier this week, 343 Industries confirmed that split-screen local co-op in Halo Infinite has been cancelled outright - so players are now doing it themselves. "In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development - and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates - we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op," 343 said at the time, dashing the hopes of players who'd been patiently waiting to couch co-op the campaign with pals. Now, however, it seems that players have found a menu glitch that permits them to add up to three additional local co-op players to their system; all you need is an Xbox Series S or X and a pal online, and this helpful walkthrough. Read more  ( 16 min )

Wizards of the Coast has apologised for a Dungeons & Dragons update that included "offensive material" and racial stereotypes about a race called Hadozee. The company said it had "failed you, our players and our fans", would remove the offensive material "effective immediately", and stated that it was "truly sorry". "We wanted to acknowledge and own the inclusion of offensive material within our recent Spelljammer: Adventures in Space content. We failed you, our players and our fans, and we are truly sorry," the company said in a statement. Read more  ( 16 min )

Fan-favourite League of Legends animated spin-off Arcane has won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. The show beat The Simpsons, Rick and Morty, What If…?, and Bob's Burgers to secure the award. It is the first streaming series to win in that category. "Honoured doesn’t even begin to describe how we feel about winning the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program," the show's official Twitter account posted earlier today. Read more  ( 16 min )

I've spent the last week playing Saints Row on last-gen PS4 and Xbox One systems - and honestly? It's really not that bad. The fundamental technological issues remain: the glaring shadow pop-in is back - and actually a bit worse here. The buggy NPC animations and physics return too. Of course, the 60fps target of the PS5 and Series X versions gives way to something worse - a sub-40fps frame-rate or even sub-30 in stress-test scenarios. Performance is still unlocked too, when a 30fps cap really would have made a positive difference, but I went into this one with low expectations, which the last-gen versions comfortably exceed. Similar to Xbox Series S, the wealth of performance mode variations seen in the Series X and PS5 releases are gone. There are no graphics toggles of any kind. On top of that, ray tracing features are absent, of course, but that's fine. There seem to be fixed pixel counts on all systems with no obvious dynamic resolution scaling, but what is interesting is how the HUD overlay actually does seem to change res. It's very, very odd. In-game DRS can't be entirely ruled out, but the game looks consistent in terms of image quality, with only the flickering HUD giving any sense of a resolution change. Looking at the qualities of the last-gen versions, you'd expect Xbox One X to deliver the best rendition of the game - but that's only partly true here. At least in image quality, you're getting a very decent turn-out here at a native 2560x1440, up from the less than stellar 1080p on PlayStation 4 Pro. The One X's 1440p also trumps Series S's full HD output - but quality settings are dialled back (particularly in terms of foliage density) and the unlocked performance level is actually worse than the PS4 Pro experience. With that being the case, there's no real 'winner' here in terms of the last-gen machines as while the One X looks significantly cleaner, frame-rates can hit a 24fps nadir - Pro is smoother overall, if far from the smooth and consistent in its delivery. Read more  ( 18 min )

The Mortuary Assistant is the latest video game to be getting the silver screen treatment. The indie horror - which has been a huge hit since it launched at the beginning of August - was reportedly plucked for an adaptation before the full game released earlier this month. Director Jeremiah Kipp says the film will be a "companion piece" to the game, and Kipp hopes to "retain the minimalist setting in and around the mortuary, the fascination with the process of embalming, and the nerve-shredding terror of the gameplay". Read more  ( 16 min )

Another day, another alleged Silent Hill leak. This one purports to be of Bloober Team's alleged Silent Hill 2 remake. They're incredibly small and incredibly bad quality, which means they're impossible to confirm either way with any credible veracity, but the poster shared the images with the legend: "First leaked image of Silent Hill 2 Remake supposedly developed by Bloober Team". As for what they show? We seem to be looking at a third-person POV with the camera behind the left shoulder rather than a fixed angle. The third is the most compelling - it appears to be a bubble head nurse and reminds me of Brookhaven Hospital, when the nurse jumps out from near the elevator - whereas the top is reminiscent of the leaked concept art images we saw a few months back. Read more  ( 16 min )

An official Elden Ring art book is on the way and it's so detailed, you'll have to buy it as two separate 400-page volumes. While currently only available to pre-order in Japan – sorry; we'll let you know if and when it becomes available in Europe and beyond – the collection is currently up for sale on Amazon.co.jp, with each book priced at ¥4400 - that's approximately £27 or £55 for the pair. According to Famitsu (thanks, PC Gamer), a collector's edition which includes both books and a framed Godfrey print is also available for ¥17,600, which is £108. It all comes in a "special three-sided box". Read more  ( 16 min )

If you have a spare cool mill laying around somewhere, and fancy upping your console collection, there's an eBay listing you might want to check out. With the world of video games offering a fair number of rare collectibles due to limited prints of cartridges, or certain consoles and peripherals not doing well enough to warrant much production of them, there's a lot of collectors in turn who like to build personal libraries. And recently, an eBay listing (spotted by Consolevariations.com) shows a pretty impressive collection of roughly 2400 different consoles. And all the seller wants for it is €984,000, which is about a million US dollars, or £850,000. The auction looks legitimately impressive. Images show a Japanese and (presumably) European version of the Pokemon themed N64, a deliciously burnt orange GameCube, a PSP Go, and so much more. Seriuosly, it is a ridiculuosly large collection that honestly could be worth the asking price. The user in question, kariaure, has even shared videos of their collection on their YouTube channel, with an extensive range of Sega consoles, Game Boys, and more shown off. Read more  ( 16 min )

It looks like the next music act to possibly have a collaboration with Fortnite is none other than Lady Gaga. According Fortnite Twitter account and leaker FNLeaksAndInfo, "a new collaborative emote" was added with a recent update called "Jug Band," and when four players come together to perform it, a song plays that sounds very similar to Lady Gaga's song Poker Face, as reported by GameSpot. FNLeaksAndInfo then posted a follow-up tweet sharing the audio in question, and yeah, it sure does sound like Poker Face, although more of a southern American, country bumpkin take on the pop song rather than the original. Read more  ( 16 min )

Elden Ring has received an official manga adaptation, only it's more of a comedy manga than you might expect. If you didn't know, Elden Ring is a very funny game. How could it not be, with the endless number of ridiculous ways you could die. But the tone of everything else is generally pretty serious. That's what makes the announcement of an official comedy Elden Ring manga a little bit of a surprise, even if it is a welcome one. The manga is being hosted on ComicWalker where you can already read the first two chapters for free, and has art from Nikiichi Tobita, with the story obviously adapted from Elden Ring itself. It starts much the same as the game's opening slideshow does, with lovingly rendered drawings based on the original art. But from the first proper page, you'll be met with a surprise: ass. Read more

According to Prey director Raphaël Colantonio, Arkane Studios was forced by Bethesda to use the name, even though him not wanting to. If you haven't heard of Prey, first released in 2017, that's not particularly surprising, as it didn't do very well (though it is one of Arkane's best games). There was also a game released in 2006 also called Prey, made by Human Head Studios, which Bethesda owns the IP rights to. And so despite the more recent title having nothing to do with the original, it uses the name, and according to a recent interview with Prey 2017's director, it wasn't anyone at Arkane's decision to use the name. "Calling Prey Prey, that was very very hurtful to me. I did not want to call this game Prey, and I had to say I wanted to anyway in front of journalists," Colantonio said on the AIAS Game Maker's Notebook podcast (thanks, Kotaku). "There is a bit of the artistic, the creative side that is insulted when you tell this artist: 'You know your game? It's going to be called Prey.' And you go like, 'I don't think it should. I think it's a mistake.'" Read more  ( 16 min )

Diablo Immortal players are finding themselves with big in-game debts after purchasing orbs from third-party sites. As spotted by PCGamesN, players are reporting that they are being left with massive in-game debts after purchasing Eternal Orbs, one of the primary currencies in Diablo Immortal, through third-party websites. These orbs are being supposedly revoked by Blizzard, likely due to the fact that orbs cost real-world money. A number of different posts on Diablo Immortal's subreddit are making the claim, saying that they own massive amounts of orbs in the game to make up for what they haven't paid for in game. It can cost £0.89 for 60 orbs, going up to as much as £89.99 for 7200 orbs. Whereas one post notes that third-party sites are selling 7200 orbs for as little as roughly £8.69 ($10). Read more  ( 16 min )

According to a recent report, Microsoft plans to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for "several more years" past the marketing deal the latter currently has with Activision. This comes from The Verge, which recently received a statement from head of Xbox Phil Spencer. "In January, we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements," wrote Spencer in the statement. It had already been noted that the next three Call of Duty games would launch on PlayStation, which obviously includes the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Presuming that Activision keeps up the yearly releases of the series, that means there will be Call of Duty games on PlayStation until at least 2024, and now, further beyond that. Read more  ( 16 min )

The Pokémon Company is suing multiple Chinese mobile game operators over a game that allegedly looks a bit too much like Pokémon, Pocket Monster Reissue. As reported by South China Morning Post (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz), The Pokémon Company is taking legal action against six Chinese companies over copyright infringement and unfair competition behaviour, due to some striking similarities between Pokémon and Pocket Monster Reissue, also known as Koudaiyaoguai Fuke. Apparently the six companies in question have been running the game since 2015, based on a stock exchange filing from Jiangyin Zhongnan Heavy Industries Co, one of the defendants. In turn, The Pokémon Company has put in a request at the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court looking to have an order placed against the six companies to prevent them from working on Pocket Monster Reissue. Read more  ( 16 min )

Earlier this week, Splitgate developer 1047 Games announced that development on the game would cease as it shifts over to an Unreal Engine 5 follow-up title. The breakout hit that mixed Halo and Portal will no longer have any feature updates, but while this marks the end of one game, it also marks the start of another. In a statement provided on Twitter, 1047 Games explained its decision to stop development on Splitgate, while also reassuring fans that its next game will also be a shooter with portals. "After careful consideration and much deliberation the 1047 Games team has determined that in order to build the game fans deserve - and to build it in a way that isn't trying to retrofit and live operate an existing product - we are ending feature development of Splitgate," reads the announcement. Read more  ( 16 min )

För 24 år sedan släpptes Metal Gear Solid i Japan.  ( 7 min )

What were they thinking!!  ( 7 min )

Stark terminsstart för Segas Universitet.  ( 7 min )

Checking whether plant-based burgers may have lighter environmental footprints.  ( 5 min )

Researcher Ben Abraham lays out how the game industry can lessen its carbon footprint.  ( 5 min )

"Every time we saw a leak, it pretty quickly exceeded our flammability limits."  ( 8 min )

Top official spells out simply why America is going back to the Moon Interview  "There is no SpaceX without NASA," Thomas Zurbuchen, an associate administrator at the US space agency's Science Mission Directorate, told The Register this week as a Falcon 9 lurked in the background at Cape Canaveral.…  ( 5 min )

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic  ( 2 min )

September. Digging into why my apt-get doesn't complete.

Hardware leaker shares the alleged specifications for Intel's Emerald Rapids Xeon processors.  ( 60 min )

By tweaking a few settings in Raspberry Pi imager, you can control your Pi over the network and will never need a screen.  ( 66 min )

The Crucial P3 SSD is an efficient budget drive with capacity to spare.  ( 66 min )

DeepCool delivers yet another impressive air cooler with its AK500. Our tests show it can handle thermal demands over 200W while remaining quiet.  ( 67 min )

The Logitech G705 is a small, contoured wireless gaming mouse that performs well but doesn’t stand out.  ( 67 min )

Get the latest news, stocks, jokes using RSS feeds and just a little Python. We use the latest version of Thonny to write our own, custom web app.  ( 63 min )

Dealmaster includes MacBook Pros, OLED TVs, AirPods Max, video games freebies, and more.  ( 8 min )

Tune in at 1 pm EST on September 7, 2022, to see what's next from Apple.  ( 4 min )

Evidence suggests eagle was part of a wave of feathered invaders.  ( 6 min )

"There’s no guarantee we’re going to get off on Saturday."  ( 6 min )

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford is auctioning off his selection of "loud shirts" to support "a developer scholarship". A tweet posted by the official Gearbox account links to a week-long auction which currently features 47 lots. At the time of writing, all have active bids on them, although it's impossible how much for, as every one is a "blind bid". "Gearbox fans may have noticed the loud shirts worn by our head honcho over the years," Gearbox tweeted. "Now these shirts can be yours! Read more  ( 15 min )

Apex Legends has set another record, setting a new minimum daily peak count of 329,041 players on Steam last month. As that only reflects the number of players on Steam and doesn't account for the thousands of players hot-dropping on console, too, it's a significant milestone for Respawn's fan-favourite battle royale, and is further bolstered by the shooter's recently revised concurrent player peak, which was also broken earlier this month. As evidenced on SteamDB and spotted by PCGN, in July, the minimum daily peak was 311,275, but in August jumped to 329,041 players. Read more  ( 16 min )

Diablo Immortal players who purchased Eternal Orbs via third-party sellers with real money have had their purchases revoked, leaving them with in-game debts. As one of the key currencies in the game, Eternal Orbs are crucial to progression, and are bought with real money. However, players who have forked out for Eternal Orbs via third-party sellers - no doubt in a bid to try and save a bit of money; in-game, they cost £0.89 GBP ($0.99 USD) for 60 all the way up to £89.99 GBP ($99.99 USD) for 7200 - have had their Orbs revoked. While there's little doubt that the Eternal Orbs were sold contrary to Blizzard's ToS and most players likely knew that going in, it's had a devastating impact on some players and led to significant deficits that will prevent them from fully participating in the game until the "debt" is cleared. Read more  ( 16 min )

Striking Distance Studios' founder Glen Schofield has deleted a tweet deemed by some to have promoted "crunch" culture in games development. In a tweet posted earlier today, Schofield - whose team is currently working on the upcoming sci-fi horror, The Callisto Protocol - talked about working 12-15 hours a day, six-seven days a week, and working over lunch and dinner, justifying it by saying "you do it because you love it". "I only talk about the game during an event," Schofield said in the since deleted tweet. "We [are] working six-seven days a week, nobody's forcing us. Read more  ( 16 min )

The Quarry developer Supermassive has confirmed it's already commenced work on its next game and yes, it's going to be the "same sort of horror" as its predecessors. In an interview with our friends at VGC, studio director Will Byles said that while he wasn't sure "how far [the team] could stretch the teen horror thing out further", another horror is on the way in either 2025 or 2026, and it will be the equivalent size of The Quarry rather than follow the episodic format of its anthology series, Dark Pictures. “We’ve started working on [the next game],” studio director Will Byles told VGC. "I can’t really tell you very much at all about it, but we have started. Again, it’s the same sort of horror genre, we’re sticking to that. It’s equivalent in size to The Quarry… and that’s about as much as I can say without giving too much away. Read more  ( 16 min )

University sim Two Point Campus has clocked up one million players in just a fortnight. Publisher Sega said its "bags of charm and tongue-in-cheek comedy" means the hit management sim has "surpassed the milestone even faster than its much-loved predecessor, Two Point Hospital". "Two Point Campus was such a thrill to create so we’re ecstatic to see so many people enjoying the game as much as they do!" said studio director, Mark Webley. "We had high hopes that we had created something that fans would love, but the response has exceeded all expectations! We’d like to send a massive thank you to all of the players out there who are showing support by building their wild and wonderful campuses – we can’t wait to see what more you’ll create." Read more  ( 16 min )

"Good writing" is a phrase that gets used quite often, and it can mean a lot of different things. Is good writing a good story? An unguessable twist? Fancy prose or deliberate themes? I'm sure I've used it at some point when what I meant to say is really: "lots of long words I don't completely understand." Still, Pentiment has good writing - wonderful writing, actually - and in this case I do know what it means. This game's writing is witty, it has tempo and timing, it is genuinely, wickedly funny. It is also, above all, natural - something that so often seems impossible in games, things where you're so often controlling a character impulsively, pulling their puppet strings on a whim. How do you write around that? Pentiment, Obsidian's surprise new thing that I am judging from an admittedly quite brief hands-on at Gamescom, seems to manage it remarkably well. Things begin in Pentiment with you choosing a background, in a fairly typical, tabletop RPG-inspired way but with a nicely in-theme twist, whereby you play as a semi-educated bloke with a choice of studies and interests. I chose to have studied Logic and dropped out halfway through Theology, with an interest in the Occult, a mediaeval gap year to Flanders and a bit of a taste for Hedonism (although I was tempted to be a Rapscallion who liked scampering about picking fights and generally being a peevish little imp, like a kind of Dark Age Bart Simpson. Hedonism ultimately just felt like it suited a dropout Theologian a little better.) Read more  ( 17 min )

Content warning: this piece contains descriptions of the mortuary process. Morgues. All I have to do is write the word and it evokes a reaction. These places are steeped in our fundamental fears and preoccupations with death, and those fears and preoccupations are preyed upon by entertainment and amped up for horrors or police dramas. Chances are, you've never been in a morgue, but I bet you have an idea of what one looks like. I've been thinking about morgues this week because I've been in a couple and they made a strong impression on me. They're not real, they're in games, and the games are very much based around them. Read more  ( 17 min )

In the run up to New Tales from the Borderlands' release on 21st October, developer Gearbox has shared 18 minutes of new gameplay footage, offering the best look yet at this long-awaited follow-up to Telltale Games' acclaimed original. New Tales from the Borderlands follows the same choice-driven "interactive fiction" template as its predecessor - indeed, Gearbox has hired "key alumni" of the original Telltale Games narrative team for the project - but features three new protagonists in an all-new adventure. This time around, all eyes are on Fran Miscowicz - out for revenge after a Maliwan laser hits her frogurt shop - altruistic scientist Anuradha Dahr, and her ambitious "streetwise" brother Octavio Wallace-Dahr, who's looking to make his own mark on the metropolis of Promethea. Read more  ( 15 min )

SLS - Sitting, Leaking Slowly? It was second time unlucky for NASA as its Space Launch System rocket remained rooted to its Florida launch pad following a second scrub of its Moon mission.…  ( 5 min )

Plus: Use machine learning to understand your cat ... possibly In brief  A man won an art competition with an AI-generated image crafted, and some people aren't best pleased about it.…  ( 6 min )

Plus: Truth Social barred from Play until it shows just one iota of decency Google and its YouTube subsidiary have joined other social media networks pledging to keep the 2022 US midterm elections safe and free from Russian trolls — and anyone else spewing democracy-damaging disinformation – by taking down such content.…  ( 6 min )

Look who misunderstood the consequences a Solana close command OptiFi, a decentralized options exchange using the Solana blockchain, inadvertently disabled its mainnet service with a misunderstood command and locked up some $661,000 worth of USDC 'digital dollar' tokens.…  ( 5 min )

Half-Life 3 confirmed!!  ( 7 min )

Banan, Melon, Kiwi och Citron…*dunka, dunka*  ( 7 min )

20 år efter tvåan är det tid för nästa generations Homeworld. FZ spelar Homeworld 3.  ( 9 min )

Daniel Kinnard görs odödlig av Naughty Dog.  ( 6 min )

Geforce RTX 3060 får konkurrens av Intel Arc även på ray tracing-fronten, åtminstone baserat på de siffror som grafikkortsdebutanten nu presenterar.  ( 6 min )

Med nya processorer på ingång är tillhörande DDR5-minne fortfarande dyrt. Detta ska successivt ändras, med en förbättrad prisnivå senast tidigt 2023.  ( 6 min )

Faktorer som prestanda och pris är ofta självklara när ny hårdvara ska införskaffas. Men hur viktigt är det för dig att hårdvaran är framtidssäker?  ( 5 min )

Haskell is a pure and lazy programming language, and the laziness allows us to write some algorithms very elegantly, by recursively referring to already calculated values. A typical example is the following definition of the Fibonacci numbers, as an infinite stream: fibs = 0 : 1 : zipWith (+) fibs (tail fibs) Elegant graph traversals A maybe more practical example is the following calculation of the transitive closure of a graph: import qualified Data.Set as S import qualified Data.Map as M type Graph = M.Map Int (S.Set Int) transitive1 :: Graph -> Graph transitive1 g = sets where sets :: M.Map Int (S.Set Int) sets = M.mapWithKey (\v vs -> S.insert v (S.unions [ sets M.! v' | v' <- S.toList vs ])) g We represent graphs as maps from vertex to their successors vertex, and defin…  ( 3 min )

J.R.R. Tolkein Now unless you have been living under a rock cave, I am sure you know who Mr. Tolkein is. Apparently, the gentleman passed away on 2nd September 1973 at the sprightly age of 80. And this gives fans like me to talk about fantasy, fantasy authors, and the love-hate relationship we have with them. For a matter of record, I am currently reading Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold. Now while I won’t go into many details (I never like to, if I enjoy a book, I would want the book to be mysterious rather than give praise, simply so that the next person enjoys it as much as I did without having any expectations.) Now this book has plenty of sex so wouldn’t recommend it for teenagers but more perhaps to mature audiences, although for the life of me couldn’t find any rating on the book. I did…  ( 16 min )

Currently when it comes to shipping new/updated device support for firmware updating under Linux with FWUPD/LVFS, it requires making/adjusting a Fwupd plug-in for carrying out the actual firmware copying/updating of the device and then adding in the device VID/PID to a quirks table so Fwupd knows about what to match a given device to for the firmware plug-in to use. Even in new devices where no plug-in changes are required, new device entries are still needed in the quirks table and it makes it challenging when Linux distributions don't quickly move to new FWUPD releases. Moving forward a better solution is being explored...  ( 6 min )

There is a lot of last minute feature work and improvements heading into Plasma 5.26 ahead of its upcoming beta and feature freeze...  ( 5 min )

While it's been years since Canonical dropped Unity as the official desktop environment of Ubuntu, some within the open-source community have still been maintaining it and running an unofficial Ubuntu Unity flavor of the distribution. Now with next month's Ubuntu 22.10 release, Ubuntu Unity will be an official flavor/spin...  ( 4 min )

Following this week's release of Chrome 105, Google has promoted Chrome 106 to their beta channel...  ( 5 min )

PipeWire 0.3.57 was released on Friday as the newest update to this Linux audio/video streams management solution that aims to fill the functionality currently provided by the likes of JACK and PulseAudio...  ( 4 min )

A few weeks ago we posted about a stellar deal on Lenovo's BoostStation, an external GPU enclosure that lets you turn almost any Thunderbolt 3 laptop into a gaming powerhouse with the simple addition of a graphics card. Rather than the £200 or £300 prices we normally see attached to these enclosures, this one was available at just £93. Now that deal is back, once again via the Laptop Outlet store on Ebay. This time though, you'll need to use code FANCY15 to knock 15% off the price of the BoostStation, bringing it down to that alluring £93 price point once again. Read more  ( 16 min )

Seagate's IronWolf and IronWolf Pro hard drives are amongst the best available, and now you can get an 8TB IronWolf model for £150 at Amazon, a historic low price. This is a huge amount of storage, ideal for archiving games and storing media like music and video, and well worth considering especially if your boot SSD is getting full. By comparison, the cheapest 8TB SSD is £669, making this more than four times cheaper. Read more  ( 16 min )

Oh September is it? Of the year 2022? Pull the other one. Go on, fine, tell me what you're playing this weekend, though I assume that's lies too. Here's what we're ostensibly clicking on! Read more  ( 16 min )

The doors have been flung open for PAX West 2022 and we've been busy bouncing between booths, games, and panels all day. Liam and I have been busy making behind-the-scenes videos for our RPS supporters and the last one of today is our daily round-up! We'll be recording and uploading one at the end of each day as a handy summary of what we got up to. Watch below and enjoy! Read more  ( 15 min )

It's been a busy day at PAX West, but nothing has been as wild as the Gearbox Software panel. Randy Pitchford made a return to the Seattle stage to let us know what's coming up for Gearbox, but not without some shenanigans first. After a classic Randy magic trick, a proud display of lock-down Lego builds, and a chaotic bidding war where he auctioned off the literal shirt off his back (which an audience member bought for an eye-watering $1200) we finally got to see some fresh New Tales From The Borderlands gameplay and had a lovely chat with director of production, James Lopez. Watch the video below for the interview in its entirety - it's a good'un! Read more  ( 16 min )

Join us for our mega tour of the PAX West show floor where we go behind the scenes of the show's hustle and bustle to bring you a little slice of PAX gaming heaven. We've been stomping around the show floor looking at all of West's greatest sights, including bonkers booths, game demos, cool cosplays, and all the different gaming areas to give you a full picture of everything there is to see at PAX. Read more  ( 15 min )

Vampire Survivors-like? Top-down Action-roguelike? Reverse bullet hell? One-stick shooter? Let's take a look.  ( 6 min )

Want some games that will test your brain and perhaps help you learn a little in the process? The Level Up and Learn: Programming Games bundle from Humble Bundle will do just that.  ( 3 min )

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic  ( 2 min )

The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Batman, The Wolf Among Us, Minecraft, Borderlands, Guardians of the Galaxy… the reign of Telltale Games, at its peak, was truly something to behold. Between 2010 and 2016, the studio churned out a number of games that defined the conversation in gaming. You couldn’t open a gaming mag (or navigate the homepage of a gaming site) without something from Telltale making itself known. Its games were everywhere, all of the time. Until they weren’t. The studio hit critical mass, and the quality of its games suffered: from 2017 onwards, after a restructuring of the studio that affected the cadence of its releases, the studio fell from grace. In trying to recreate the magic of The Walking Dead, Telltale creatively suffocated its staff and homogenised its output. A series of gaffes soiled the company’s reputation. As quickly as the world fell in love with the studio, it forgot about it. The second season of the Wolf Among Us, as well as a planned Stranger Things game, were cancelled. But that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the formula: in fact, quite the opposite is true. During its height, people loved Telltale because it harkened back to an era of classic, narrative-focused adventure games. You don’t sell 28 million-plus episodes if there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way your games work, do you? To that end, you can see why Gearbox Software partnered with “key alumni” of the original Telltale Games narrative team revisit one of the most cult titles in the studio’s back catalogue: Tales From the Borderlands. Read more  ( 18 min )

It's a three-day weekend in the US, which means those of you in the region will hopefully be enjoying the time off. The Labor Day weekend is usually like any other long weekend in the US. Full of barbeques, relaxing, having a few drinks, and enjoying what's left of the summer. As you see, this is the last summer holiday weekend for us, and it also signals the end of the swimming season at public pools. This is fine for some of us who have a phobia of community swimming pools (pools are NOT a unrinal people!) For the rest of the folks not in the US, it's probably just an ordinary weekend, but time off nonetheless, so why not enjoy it by playing some games? That's what the folks at VG247 plan to do. Read more  ( 18 min )

Crusader Kings 3 is getting a new event pack next week called Friends and Foes, and it will add all sorts of potential drama to your relationships. As if relationships in the game aren't full of enough drama as it stands now, things could become worse - or better. It depends on how things play out. In the pack, your relationships will matter more than ever as those closest to you come alive in "the most intimate detail." This is thanks to over 100 new experiences included in the new event pack. Read more  ( 15 min )

CD Projekt Red will talk about all things Cyberpunk next week on September 6, and specifically about what's next for Cyberpunk 2077. The studio will also discuss its anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners which is scheduled to debut on Netflix September 13. The show is a joint project between CD Projekt, Studio Trigger, and Netflix and is set in Cyberpunk 2077’s universe, but features a different story and takes place in a separate period. Read more  ( 15 min )

The UK government’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is concerned that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard could “substantially lessen competition” in consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services. According to a public notice from the CMA, it is concerned that should Microsoft purchase Activision Blizzard, it would harm rivals by refusing access to the company’s games, such as Overwatch or Call of Duty, or providing access on bad terms. The CMA said it received evidence about the “potential impact” of combining Activision Blizzard with Microsoft’s broader ecosystem. It feels the latter could “leverage Activision Blizzard’s games” with its strength across console, cloud, and PC operating systems to “damage competition in the nascent market” for cloud gaming services. Read more  ( 16 min )

I find that there’s quite the divide between video games and cinema, and that isn’t necessarily a problem for either industry, but Sam Barlow’s latest game – Immortality – shows just how powerful intertwining the two can be, when done effectively. Jean-Luc Godard, a renowned French-Swiss film director and critic, once said “a story should have a beginning, middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” Immortality is perhaps one of the most ideal examples of Godard’s words in practice. As you try to unravel the mystery of Marissa Marcel (Manon Gage), you find yourself using a Moviola, threading together random clips from the three movies that she starred in. Marcel’s first film, Ambrosio, borrows its plot from the Gothic novel, The Monk. It’s equal parts sexy and unnerving, and the temptress character that Marcel plays seems to flow into her next film, too. Minsky followed a year later with a new director, John Durick, and saw Marcel play an artist’s muse in a murder-mystery. Finally, 20 years later, Marcel worked on Two of Everything – once again with John Durick, and after a period of inactivity from the actress. In this one, the tone is even darker than before; Marcel plays a successful pop-star with a body double, but everything goes awry. Read more  ( 18 min )

Microsoft has provided details for its Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan which is currently in testing in Columbia and Ireland. The company started testing the expanded Xbox Game Pass subscription service in early August with Xbox Insiders in both countries. With Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family, five accounts share the benefits of Game Pass Ultimate, allowing you, your family, and friends to play the Game Pass library of games on console, PC, and cloud together. Read more  ( 16 min )

MultiVersus has announced that Gizmo, the adorable mogwai from the iconic 80s horror-comedy Gremlins, will be joining the roster of playable characters. While not the biggest fan of fighting games, but this little dude will almost certainly have me diving into MultiVersus again when he’s released on Tuesday, 6 September. Whenever September rolls around, I immediately begin to feel autumnal, even if the sun is still shining. You know that it’s a matter of time before Halloween rolls around, then Christmas, and then the New Year. It all goes far too fast, but there is one thing that I love about this type of year; watching all the seasonal films that feel wrong to watch at any other time. I think the team at Player First Games must share similar sentiments, because one of these films is Gremlins. So, introducing Gizmo as we approach autumn feels like perfect timing; especially when we know Stripe is also right around the corner. Read more  ( 16 min )

YuGiOh Cross Duel, the four-player digital card game announced a while back by Konami, is launching on mobile platforms September 6. In this version of YuGiOh, four players take up a slot in a four-way free for all, sending monsters towards other players via lanes. In addition, there are cooperative modes present that have each of the four players face off against one giant, hugely powerful monster in the centre of the board. If you’re not a fan of all this shiny multiplayer content, then single player modes will also be available on launch. As with prior YuGiOh games, fans of the old TV shows can expect to see a variety of characters they recognise pop up in-game, so you can represent your favourite version of the YuGiOh cartoon. Plus, this game has some pretty neat 3D models of some of the more iconic monsters, which is sure to mean a lot to those of you out there with a love for the series’ greatest hits. Read more  ( 16 min )

There’s a supermarket chain here in Europe called Lidl, and if you don’t know what to expect when you enter, it’s baffling. One of the strangest places on earth for the unprepared. The shelves are lined with goods that are almost what you get in other supermarkets – almost. The branding is slightly askew, the brand-famous colours slightly off; the cola is a bit more burgundy, the chocolate a more muted shade of purple. The Oreos are called Neos, for some reason. It’s like wandering into a peculiar – significantly cheaper – otherworld. That’s what Islets is to Hollow Knight. It’s the off-brand, cheaply-made budget version of everyone’s favourite premium Metroidvania. You can tell exactly what it’s going for – the combat, the aesthetic, the level design, the enemies, and even the graves of the humongous creatures that came before… they’re all there, and intact. But instead of that painterly style Team Cherry has injected into the doomed undergrowth of Hollow knight, you’ve got this Flash game aesthetic. Instead of a rich, sweeping soundscape, you’ve got a hodgepodge collection of sound effects and some much more simplistic music. But none of that is bad. In fact, the simplicity of it all – this decidedly off-brand feel – works in the game’s favour. It means you don’t get too distracted from the cool mechanics, from the simple-but-effective combat, from the tight platforming. Everything on-screen is readable, simple to parse: the cracks at the end of this map? That’s a secret, for sure. The big pink glowing skeleton circling this block? That’ll hurt you if you touch it. This rotating red circle in the middle of your airship? Well, that’ll be your hitbox. Read more  ( 18 min )

I’ll come clean. I’m writing this well in advance of publication as I’m going on holiday. I usually spend literal minutes coming up with a brilliant way to segue into the topic of the week’s podcast. It is often very brilliant and hilarious. The relationship between me and the podcast article is complicated. It’s not easy. It requires work for it to be the best it can be. You can’t just turn up and hope to have a great podcast article without trying your hardest. Sometimes I even hold a little ceremony before I write the article, just to show how serious I am about writing it. It’s a big deal, so I have to make sure I’ve thought it through properly. But I’m not doing that today, because of the holiday reason I mentioned above – a holiday I’m taking after writing the article, which is in no way related to the topic of the podcast. Read more  ( 17 min )

It was a weird year for Gamescom in 2022; with the absence of two of the big three (and Microsoft only making a showing of a few Game Pass hits), the schedule was cleared for smaller publishers to put their best foot forward and show off the goods. The result? A pretty interesting and esoteric show, with a massive focus on horror, and with the spotlight shining bright on studios that may otherwise have been overshadowed by their first-party peers. Smaller publishers, then, had a killer show. Whether that was Koch with System Shock, Dead Island 2, and Goat Simulator 3, or Krafton with Moonbreaker and The Callisto Protocol, the not-Ubisofts and not-Microsofts of Gamescom made a lasting impact. But amongst them all, there was one publisher that really stood out to me, and you’ll probably be able to guess who that was based on the coverage myself and Alex Donaldson have put out from the show to date. It was Focus Home Interactive. First up, there’s Evil West: a game which sells you as a Wild West Superhero, armed to the teeth and pissed off about the vampire threat that threatens to shake the frontier lands of a fledgling USA. Part-Bulletstorm, part-Devil May Cry, and part-Clint Eastwood via Tarantino Western B-movie, Evil West has everything I want from my action games in 2022. Explosions, foul mouths, tight and responsive gameplay, and the most ludicrous, over-the-top nonsense you could ask for. Read more  ( 19 min )

We finally have a proper, long look at Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn's gameplay. At gamescom, developer A44 brought a new build of the game to show off to the press, and subsequently released a new trailer with a deeper look at gameplay. As a follow-up to Ashen, Flintlock was always assumed to be a Souls-like in some ways. While this remains true, the game is leaning harder into God of War and even spectacle fighters than it initially appeared. At five minutes-long, the video starts off simple; showing off the meaty hatchet combat and how the flintlock pistol fits into the flow. But it quickly skips to the more involved parts of the action. When near death, enemies appear to glow like in the modern Doom games, and catching them in that window delivers a God of War-like finisher. Read more  ( 16 min )

Sons of the Forest, the survival horror title initially planned for a close-to-Halloween release, has been delayed one last time to February 2023. According to a tweet from the official Twitter account for the game, this delay is so the team can “complete the polish we feel is needed”. Bittersweet news for those who have been crossing their fingers for this title as a late-in-the-year treat. However, as Sons of the Forest is the sequel to the hugely popular PC horror title The Forest, the importance of nailing a first impression makes sense. The prior game quickly became one of the most popular spooky experiences on the platform, meaning there’s a lot of hype out there for what Endnight Games has in store. Read more  ( 15 min )

Fingers crossed this prodigious test will have a good weather experience NASA will try to launch its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to the Moon on Saturday after its first attempt on August 29 was scrubbed due to what turned out to be a faulty sensor on one of its core engines.…  ( 5 min )

Just days after US rules tackling homemade firearms take effect A US man has admitted he broke the law when he used 3D printers to make components converting semi-automatic guns to full auto.…  ( 5 min )

More silicon sales for us says Qualcomm Meta’s latest move in the effort to reinvent Second Life, or roll out the metaverse, involves building better VR chips and it's trusting Qualcomm with the job.…  ( 5 min )

Users will now be able to blur or replace their backgrounds during video meetings or calls Microsoft is making it easier for Teams to work with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in a bid to grow the number of monthly active users on the collaboration platform.…  ( 5 min )

Letters to FCC prove what many believed, but don't address a bigger problem US mobile carriers know a lot about where their customers are located, and according to letters sent to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), they routinely store such data for years, willingly hand it over to law enforcement if served a proper subpoena, and say users can't opt out.…  ( 7 min )

Outsourced assembly and test a key missing part of supply chain, and foreign entities aren't beyond the pale Stakeholders in the semiconductor industry have a clear-eyed view of the changes that should happen in order for the US to rebuild a leading position in chip manufacturing, and a wide-ranging approach addressing the entire supply chain is needed.…  ( 6 min )

'Improved algorithm' set to keep miscreants at bay, web-based taxi service promises The taxi offshoot of troubled Russian tech giant Yandex has been hit by online pranksters, who yesterday ordered dozens of cabs to a single address in central Moscow, resulting in a major traffic jam.…  ( 5 min )

'Improved algorithm' set to keep miscreants at bay, web-based taxi service promises The taxi offshoot of troubled Russian tech giant Yandex has been hit by online pranksters, who yesterday ordered dozens of cabs to a single address in central Moscow, resulting in a major traffic jam.…  ( 5 min )

UMC founder Robert Tsao wants to train more than 3m 'civilian warriors' and sharpshooters A Taiwanese semiconductor magnate is to provide the money to prime several million "civilian warriors" and marksmen to help defend the island nation in the event of an invasion by China.…  ( 4 min )

Judge says that servers being located in Singapore is not a get-out clause A ruling handed down from the Delhi High Court this week declared that Telegram must hand over information such as IP addresses, mobile numbers, and devices used by channels on the platform involved in copyright infringement.…  ( 5 min )

National Labor Relations Board says company had not met the burden of proof for its objections Amazon's attempt to rerun the election that resulted in workers unionizing at a warehouse in New York City have been shut down by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).…  ( 5 min )

Or so says a hopeful IDC after releasing latest forecast of doom The pandemic fueled buying frenzy in the PC industry looks to be well and truly over with analysts at IDC forecasting a double digit decline in shipments this year, and growth hopes for next pinned on a Windows 10 enterprise refresh.…  ( 4 min )

OS support includes Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC and Linux options Intel has made available versions of its 12th-generation Core processors optimized for edge and IoT applications, claiming the purpose-built chips enable smaller form factor designs, but with the AI inferencing performance to analyze data right at the edge.…  ( 4 min )

What could possibly go wrong? The UK government has suggested IT contractors should challenge errors in their tax status and reclaim overpaid tax through self-assessment.…  ( 7 min )

Rules for devices including phones aimed at reducing environmental impact of scroll addiction The European Union is proposing legislation which will make manufacturers of tablets and smartphones offer longer-life batteries and spare parts for at least five years.…  ( 4 min )

Brit watchdog says what we're all thinking, motions for deeper investigation Following the launch of a merger inquiry into Microsoft's acquisition of video game developer and publisher Activision Blizzard in July, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said yesterday it had identified potential concerns about the tie-up.…  ( 6 min )

When the PCs were pilfered by ram raiding rotters, green screens proved their worth On Call  Welcome again to On-Call, The Register’s trawl through readers’ reminiscences of tech trials and tribulations.…  ( 4 min )

vSphere users can start smaller without paying cluster-bucks VMware Explore  VMware has made a profound change to its partnership with AWS by removing the need to run its wares on dedicated clusters.…  ( 5 min )

Not worthy of the name 'smart glasses' and not sold outside China until 2023 Lenovo has launched a face-mounted wearable monitor.…  ( 4 min )

Increased ‘configuration not supported’ heartbreak sparks move Microsoft’s networking team has made a change to the way certifies network interface cards (NICs) for use in Windows Server.…  ( 4 min )

You’re going to need new cables and learn to recognize revised logos The USB Promoter Group has announced version 2.0 of the USB4 spec and promises it can carry data at 80Gbps.…  ( 4 min )

From hero to zero-day ... to plain zero Three former US government cyber-spies who, among other things, illicitly compromised and snooped on Americans' devices for the United Arab Emirates government have been banned from participating in international arms exports under a deal reached with Uncle Sam.…  ( 5 min )

Producing vital gas out of Red Planet's hostile atmosphere? Truly a test of Perseverance The oxygen-generator onboard NASA's Perseverance rover, which has repeatedly extracted the vital gas from the Martian atmosphere in tests, has been detailed in a scientific paper published this week.…  ( 6 min )

The Raspberry Pi projects are plentiful as we roll into September—this list has 10 of the best ones we’ve had the honor of featuring over the past month.  ( 64 min )

We've benchmarked all the latest GPUs to select the best graphics cards for gaming. These graphics cards offer the best performance at their price and resolution, from 1080p to 4K.  ( 93 min )

The best gaming rewards are the 1-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial, the Forza Horizon 5 Premium Add-Ons Bundle, and full game download codes for Grounded.  ( 63 min )

Our GPU benchmarks hierarchy ranks all the current and previous generation graphics cards based on real-world gaming tests. Find out how the latest GPUs stack up.  ( 95 min )

The Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 has an attractive and fresh design, but its AMD components aren't always the fastest at office tasks.  ( 71 min )

Entry-level Seasonic's ATX 3.0 PSUs with 12VHPWR connector for next-generation graphics cards not going to be too expensive.  ( 63 min )

Having already covered a price drop on the 5800X3D this week, it's a surprise to see its price fall even further. But, thanks to a Labor Day sale, you can now pick up AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D on eBay (via seller Antonline) for just $365.  ( 67 min )

Igor's Lab ran tests on a GeForce RTX 3080 with a liquid cooler to test various thermal paste application techniques.  ( 60 min )

PC unit shipments heading south and will not rebound to pandemic levels any time soon.  ( 60 min )

DDR5 prices are expected to duplicate what happened in 2021, and rapidly decline by 2023.  ( 59 min )

We test prebuilt gaming PCs with our typical gauntlet of real-world and synthetic benchmarks to measure overall system performance.  ( 76 min )

With great battery life, a pleasing 3:2 display and excellent port selection, HP's Elite Dragonfly G3 is a superb high-end business portable. But it's expensive, and there are very good alternatives that cost less.  ( 74 min )

A deluxe three-in-one machine for makers short on space.  ( 68 min )

Intel has shared lower level details along with multiple ray tracing benchmarks for the upcoming Arc A770 graphics card, pitching it against the GeForce RTX 3060.  ( 64 min )

As governmental scrutiny of Microsoft's proposed $69bn USD acquisition of publisher Activision Blizzard grows - particularly in relation to its impact on PlayStation - Microsoft has revealed a commitment to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation platforms for "at least several more years" beyond Sony's existing marketing deal. That's according to a statement given to The Verge in which Microsoft said the commitment was made by Xbox boss Phil Spencer to PlayStation head Jim Ryan earlier this year and formalised in a signed agreement. "In January," Spencer told The Verge in part of a statement shared by the publication, "we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements". Read more  ( 16 min )

Developer 1047 Games has announced it will be "ending feature development" on its acclaimed free-to-play sci-fi shooter Splitgate in order to shift its focus to creating a new game in the same universe. Splitgate - which has been described as "Halo meets Portal" in some quarters - made quite the splash last year. Despite having been around on PC since May 2019, an open crossplay beta for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC proved so popular that 1047 Games elected to delay the game's multi-platform early access launch in order to better accommodate its unexpected surge in popularity. 1047 Games has continued to build on that success in the months since, most recently launching Splitgate's beta season two in July. However, the developer has now said it will be "ending feature development" on the game as a result of what it seemingly considers to be insurmountable legacy issues. Read more  ( 16 min )

If your thirst for God of War Ragnarök news remains unsated, you might be interested in a brief new look at the game's combat, which has been shared - bows a-twanging and axes a-bonking - in the run up to release on 9th November. The 100-second clip comes courtesy of GameInformer, and features a bit of ultraviolence against new bipedal lizard foes known as Grims. While a lot of it appears to be business as usual for God of War (Kratos still has his Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos, and Atreus retains his beloved bow and arrow), an accompanying write-up details some new combat additions, including Weapon Signature Moves. Read more  ( 16 min )

11 bit studios has released a statement saying it will no longer issue Steam keys to curators. The developer, known for This War of Mine and Frostpunk, will follow this rule starting from today, following on from the recent awareness of key scammers posing as curators. In its statement, the studio said that the decision was made based on its own experiences and those of other developers. Read more  ( 16 min )

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red will reveal its plans for the future of the game next week, via a fresh livestream. A "special episode" of the developer's Night City Wire video series will broadcast next Tuesday, 6th September at 4pm UK time. Will this be when we finally get a glimpse of Cyberpunk 2077's long-awaited multiplayer component? Will we see a single-player expansion? Or is this just more hairstyles for V? Read more  ( 15 min )

18 Capcom classics will come pre-loaded on the Evercade EXP. Evercade's new retro game handheld was announced earlier this year by Blaze Entertainment, and builds on past hardware by adding a better screen, built-in Wi-Fi, and a new pair of triggers. Today, we learned that it would also come with 14 Capcom arcade games and four more home console titles packed in, including Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting, Mega Man and Breath of Fire. Read more  ( 15 min )

Our Chris is back from Gamescom and he's pooped, yet despite that, it sounds as though he had a nice time. Who needs all the hullabaloo when a quieter event allows smaller games some air? In today's episode of Weekly, Chris takes us back there, to Gamescom, sharing what it was like on the show floor, as well as the games that caught his eye and the gossip he heard. It's particularly entertaining to hear about his meeting with Callisto Protocol boss Glen Schofield, who seems to have left quite an impression - an impression Chris delightfully re-enacts. We also dive into the big review of the week, Immortality, which Chris wrote. This is the new game from Her Story and Telling Lies developer Sam Barlow, so it arrives with anticipation. And it seems it dazzlingly lives up to it. And here we hear why. Read more  ( 14 min )

A touching tribute from Naughty Dog can be found in the newly-released Last of Us Part 1 for the PlayStation 5. This tribute recognises the work of Visual Arts producer Daniel Kinnard, who passed away during the game's production. His image can be seen immortalised within the game, where the developer has been reimagined as a pro baseball player for the Denver Skulls on a poster adorning the walls of the farmhouse players search when looking for Ellie. Read more  ( 15 min )

Two classic games from the Nintendo 64 era have met in a rather unusual crossover thanks to modders. GoldenEye 007 has been given a Mario-inspired makeover, which sees a multitude of Koopas patrolling through a custom-made version of Nintendo 64's Bomb-omb Battlefield with KF7 Soviet rifles and hand grenades. Of course, the turtle-like foot soldiers and their Bob-omb comrades do not stand a chance against this Bond-like Mario protagonist and his own weaponary. Read more  ( 15 min )

Xbox has officially announced its Game Pass Friends and Family plan, which is already available in Columbia and the Republic of Ireland. A few days ago, a logo for the plan, which was reportedly scraped from Xbox's backend system, surfaced online. Xbox has now made an official announcement unveiling the new plan, including details on what exactly it includes and pricing. Read more  ( 15 min )

A new game that centres on "love, pop and the '90s" is set to release this autumn. Riley and Rochelle from Sheinman Games will take players on a deductive journey, following the lives of two singers from two different backgrounds who fall in love... and also fall apart. Players will create their own documentary about the two stars as they "take a nuanced yet insider look at the pop culture world" of the '90s. Diary entries, along with a catalogue of Riley and Rochelle's older records, will work as a framework for the narrative, with the developer stating "the player will choose how they want the film to end, and who gets to come out on top." Here's a trailer: Read more  ( 15 min )

The Pokémon Company is taking legal action against a popular Chinese mobile game, Pocket Monster Issue, which it claims is a Pokémon clone. (No, not like Ditto. Or those Pokémon that Mewtwo made in the movie.) Pocket Monster Issue is a popular smartphone game in the country, and has been running for more than five years. According to the South China Morning Post (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz), The Pokémon Company is seeking damages worth 500 million yuan (around £62m), and a series of public apologies posted on major gaming websites. Read more  ( 15 min )

Twitch streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins has seemingly decided to take a break from streaming. Ninja is known for streaming Fortnite and is currently the most followed channel on Twitch with over 18 million followers. After some unusual behaviour on his social media accounts, it's left some people confused as to what exactly has happened. Read more  ( 15 min )

Indie Gladiator game Domina has been delisted from Steam, after its developer went off on a transphobic rant. Developer Nicholas John Leonhard Groissen took it upon himself to use his game as a platform to spout these comments in a recent 'update' announcing Domina's new name - Dominus. "We're Out of Ideas, Mentally Unstable, Totally Degenerate, & Desperate for Clout - Let's Pretend We're A Completely Different Game to Regain Relevance!" the post began. Read more  ( 16 min )

After two years of operation, Nintendo has decided to scrub Mario Kart Tour of its gacha-like elements. Nintendo's smartphone version of Mario Kart currently allows you to dump currency into an in-game warp pipe in exchange for randomised rewards, such as characters and karts. This will soon be replaced by a Fortnite-style rotating item shop, where you can exchange currency for items directly. Read more  ( 15 min )

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: juice, B-Type, and a bit of spelunking. If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive. Poinpy is one of the first Netflix games, a surprisingly great selection of smartphone treats that are worryingly easy to miss or forget about, given the streaming giant's slightly odd rollout. Read more  ( 17 min )

We'd been waiting a little while to learn something concrete about Creative Assembly's long-rumoured first-person shooter, but when Hyenas was finally revealed, the response was maybe a little muted. Hyenas was a surprise: Creative Assembly had been an entirely strategy-based studio for decades until it released Alien Isolation, a small, considered first-person game. A multiplayer, co-op, character-based shooter with a loud and brash tone doesn't seem like the most natural follow-up. But then, Alien Isolation wasn't exactly a natural follow-up to Total War, and speaking to Eurogamer at Gamescom, product director Alex Hunnisett explained that, actually, these games are rarely interlinked - despite some staff from within the studio moving across to work on it. "Really, when we were looking at Hyenas, it was a case of going, well, what are folks enjoying playing at the moment, for starters, and the great thing about working in a studio is often you're enjoying doing something, you've got enough capable people around you just go, 'let's just do that then.'" Aside from the fact that both games are set in space, he said, that's really where the similarities or shared inspirations end. Hyenas, like Alien Isolation before it, is very much its own thing. Read more  ( 19 min )

G2 Esports has announced a brand new all-female League of Legends team, one of the first of its kind. The team, called Hel, is named after Norse mythology's goddess of death and includes the elite players Olivia "Olizia" Nnenna Calistus, Agnė "Karina" Ivaškevičiūtė, Alena "TIFA" Maurer, Maya "Caltys" Henckel and Ève "Colomblbl" Monvoisin. It follows the similarly all-female Valorant team G2 Gozen formed last year and proves G2's commitment to boosting the visibility of women in esports and to eventually empower men and women to compete together in future. Read more  ( 16 min )

Paradox Interactive's acclaimed Medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings 3 is set to make its historical tapestry a little richer next Thursday, 8th September, with the arrival of the Friends and Foes Event Pack DLC, promising over a hundred new events. These new player-driven stories, which can be encountered throughout ordinary play, all have relationships at their heart, but not necessarily the positive kind. One the one hand, players can "uncover novel ways to become pals with those [they] hold dear or even achieve the coveted best friend status", but on the other, Paradox says players should "be prepared for ever more dangerous rivals, sharpening their vengeful knives to get back at you." Stories are at the heart of Crusader Kings 3, so more narrative options are always welcome, but those uninterested in laying down cash for the Friends & Foes Event Pack will also have something to look forward to - a number of additional free features and changes will be arriving simultaneously as part of the new 1.7 Bastion Update. Read more  ( 15 min )

The sdl12-compat is a SDL 1.2 compatibility layer implementation atop SDL 2.0. This sdl12-compat project allows for old, out-of-date games and other applications relying on the old SDL 1.2 interface to in turn run via the modern SDL2 library for better compatibility with input devices, Wayland support (assuming no direct X11 hard dependencies), support for PipeWire audio, improved input controls, and various other enhancements only found in SDL 2.0 and not the unmaintained SDL 1.2...  ( 5 min )

Intel's open-source "ANV" Vulkan driver for Linux systems has added support for the newly-ratified Vulkan mesh shader extension...  ( 5 min )

Back in July Intel's Peter Zijlstra proposed "Call Depth Tracking" as a mitigation approach for handling Retbleed and avoiding the "performance horror show" of Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation (IBRS) usage. Out today is the newest version of the Call Depth Tracking code and the performance benchmark results are looking very promising for lessening the pain of the Retbleed CPU mitigation performance impact...  ( 6 min )

The recently proposed Intel open-source Vulkan driver split where the Gen7/Gen8 graphics support would be shifted off to a separate "new" legacy driver has happened to allow the Intel ANV Vulkan driver to move forward with its Skylake "Gen9" graphics and later focus...  ( 5 min )

As expected, Ubuntu 22.10 will be powered by the Linux 5.19 kernel...  ( 5 min )

As part of experimenting with using Rust code inside Mesa, longtime Mesa developer Karol Herbst of Red Hat has been developing Rusticl as a new Rust-based OpenCL implementation for Gallium3D and an alternative to the long-standing "Clover" OpenCL state tracker. That Rusticl code with the initial Rust infrastructure for Mesa is expected to be merged in the coming days...  ( 4 min )

Stemming from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS activating systemd's out-of-memory daemon (systemd-oomd) and users finding their web browser being killed when facing memory or swap pressure, a change has been upstreamed in systemd to help alleviate this situation...  ( 5 min )

An independent contributor to the open-source Mesa 3D graphics project has begun eyeing AVX-512 support by the LLVMpipe software rasterizer due to AVX-512 being present with the new AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors...  ( 5 min )

When currently using Intel's open-source OpenGL and Vulkan drivers on Linux with their new Arc Graphics discrete GPUs, it's simply been reported as "Intel{R} Graphics" for the product/renderer string. With the latest Mesa 22.3-devel work and for back-porting to the current stable series, the graphics card models are beginning to be properly reported...  ( 5 min )

Valve just published the Steam Survey results for August 2022 that show a slight increase to Linux gaming as part of the overall marketshare on a percentage basis...  ( 5 min )

Researchers analyzed real recommendations to hundreds of YouTube users.  ( 6 min )

Flat-to-curved screens have an identity crisis.  ( 6 min )

It's not in the US, it's not for games, and devs will only save 4 percent.  ( 5 min )

T-Mobile spends $304 million to win over 90% of available 2.5 GHz licenses.  ( 6 min )

Requiring parts and manuals access part of broader environmental initiative.  ( 6 min )

The equation named after him helps organize our thoughts on extraterrestrial life.  ( 5 min )

Dev demeaned a trans streamer in a post joking about a "sex change" for the game.  ( 5 min )

I want to find—not buy—my cool-looking loot.  ( 5 min )

When adult females emerge from pupae, friction shuffles the bacteria to genital area.  ( 6 min )

Jeep's first plug-in hybrid SUV hits the mark on ride quality, comfort.  ( 5 min )

"We are working together with commercial space companies and growing the economy."  ( 11 min )

USB4 vs. Thunderbolt 4—and everything else to know about the newest USB standard.  ( 4 min )

Group that pulled off successful attack on PyPI has humble origins.  ( 5 min )

Fog Reveal is "almost invisible" when attempting to search for it online.  ( 6 min )

8 november är det skarpt läge.  ( 6 min )

God dag kvastskaft.  ( 6 min )

No content preview  ( 7 min )

Luktar det expansion?  ( 6 min )

Sjung ut!  ( 6 min )

Premiär i november.  ( 7 min )

Men osäkert när tjänsten släpps i Sverige.  ( 7 min )

Phil Crifo visar vad spelet går ut på.  ( 7 min )

Och några andra ikoniska platser i slotet med omnejd.  ( 7 min )

Prisa den allsmäktige Arkvoodle! Crypto är tillbaka, men vill vi verkligen ha mer av hans massmordsfilosofi och sexistiska humor?  ( 8 min )

Finnarna ska tydligen få stryk i CS:GO, Dota 2, Rocket League och Tekken 7.  ( 6 min )

Och Ubisoft ska visa upp det på riktigt inom kort.  ( 6 min )

Men co-op online såväl som Forge-läget kommer i november.  ( 7 min )

No content preview  ( 2 min )

Paradox Interactive has announced some more goodies coming for Stellaris with the Toxoids Species Pack and a free update landing on September 20th.  ( 5 min )

Splitgate, the first-person shooter with portals, is no longer getting actively developed as the developer has seemingly given up with it to move onto a new game.  ( 4 min )

Is the hype of Wordle over yet? Okay good. Need something new to try each day? Why not take a little look over at Farmbound.  ( 4 min )

[I] Doesn’t Exist is an up-and coming text-based game by LUAL Games that will combine old-school adventuring with modern design, most notably a narrative AI that promises to smooth out the player experience.  ( 6 min )

OBS Studio is the free and open source video content creation kit for livestreaming and recording. Probably the best software in the world for it and OBS Studio 28.0 is out now.  ( 4 min )

After waiting quite some time, Project Killswitch from dbrand for the Steam Deck is finally coming but there's been a few changes and it seems not everyone is happy with it.  ( 5 min )

Valve continues tweaking and improving the Steam Deck software both the Steam Client and SteamOS. A new Beta is available with more improvements to Steam Input.  ( 4 min )

The GOG Sale Finale is on and another game is being given away. This time it's Immortal Redneck, a pretty good FPS set in Egypt with rogue-lite elements.  ( 4 min )

Another month has finished and the Steam Hardware & Software Survey has been refreshed. It shows once again that the Linux user share has risen.  ( 4 min )

At Gamescom I sat down with a lovely ice cold beer and two lovely lads who ran me through military real-time tactics sequel Men Of War II in a 45-minute hands-off presentation. As a total freshman to the series, I was a little intimidated by the prospect of sinking my feet into the trenches of a dense strategy bonanza, especially as things kicked off with a literal history lesson. But after watching and absorbing one of the game's early missions, I can genuinely say that I'd be confident enough to give it a go when it comes out. Even perhaps, confident enough to say that I'd genuinely enjoy it quite a bit as a total newbie. Read more  ( 19 min )

Oh my goodness, what a creepy, funny, and odd game Northern Journey is. I almost don't want to say any more about it, not because it can be spoiled but because it seems appropriately respectful. Not in a reverent sense, you understand. It just feels like such a world should be preserved, even slightly feared, rather than trampled on by some idiot with a camera in her face. To call Northern Journey "retro" would completely misrepresent it. It's beautiful in an ugly, desolate way reminiscent of Kenshi or Morrowind. It's translucent in its exposition but not obtuse, hostile, or obnoxiously hard. It's a bit clunky, without that ever undermining the experience. It's vaguely amateurish, yet almost consciously so, like a painter who knows their talent and intent is enough to overcome any technical flaws. This is a bloody treat and I'm so glad I got to play it. Read more  ( 15 min )

Real-time tactics game Men Of War 2 has been pushed to 2023 to incorporate more features and content sparked by feedback from closed playtests. Developers Best Way and publishers Fulqrum say the impact of having to pause development because of the outbreak of war in Best Way’s home country of Ukraine has led them to take extra time on the game for these to be implemented. Watch the latest trailer below. Read more  ( 17 min )

So two weeks ago I let you know that Vampire Survivors wouldn’t be getting any more patches before it launched into its 1.0 version. The cheeky scamps at poncle have only gone and made me look like a right sausage today, surprise announcing another patch. This time, they’re adding in a new game mode, quick start, and a very odd new character. Read more  ( 16 min )

Another indie developer has come forward publicly with allegations that UK-based publishers PQube have withheld money from them. Thai dev team Corecell claim they’ve only seen some of the minimum guaranteed money agreed when they signed the European console publishing rights to their action-puzzle game AeternoBlade 2 over to PQube in 2019. Corecell say they attempted to resolve things with PQube but that didn’t work, and they had to terminate the publishing agreement in 2020. Since then, Corecell have tried to regain the rights to AeternoBlade 2 from PQube to no avail. Corecell allege that PQube did offer to return the rights to the game, but only if they would agree to keep the situation secret. Read more  ( 19 min )

Statistically, there’s a good chance you clicked onto this page with a Logitech G502 mouse. Between its Proteus Spectrum and refreshed Hero models, the G502 has sold boatloads, and was voted as RPS readers’ favourite gaming mouse in both 2019 and 2021. Not undeservedly either, as it’s sat atop our best gaming mouse rankings for years. Making more drastic improvements to it wouldn’t therefore seem like a pressing priority, but Logitech have had a crack regardless with the new G502 X series. There’s a trio of redesigned rodents in this family: the standard G502 X I’ve got on review here, the wireless G502 X Lightspeed, and the G502 X Plus, which is essentially the G502 X Lightspeed with added RGB lighting. Since prices max out at £150 / $160 for the G502 X Plus, the two Lightspeed-equipped mice could be less expensive alternatives to Razer’s new DeathAdder V3 Pro and Basilisk V3 Pro – but as the cheapest and most direct successor the G502 Hero, it’s the G502 X that’s likely to see the most desk action. Does it deserve to? Read more  ( 18 min )

First impressions can be interesting. I didn’t know what to expect when I met David Ventura at the Backbeat booth, after a long opening day of the weekend-long Japanese indie gaming event BitSummit. I knew of his work - now the CEO of his self-founded studio Ichigoichie with developers based both in Japan and Sweden, Ventura has had his hands in a number of highly-influential rhythm games over the course of his career. This includes work on Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents during his time in Japan at iNiS, having worked at the studio for a decade before moving to Sweden to work outside of games on educational music software. In 2018 he returned to games by founding Ichigoichie (stylised as 151A). Their first game, Hexagroove, blended strategy, rhythm and educational tools for a game that captured the building blocks of being a DJ. Ventura was at BitSummit to showcase the successor to this game, Backbeat. It’s a bit of a departure from much of his past work, acting more like a puzzle game with a musical soul, albeit one where the act of creating and playing music together is imbued into every solution. As the crowd began to leave the bustling convention hall for the day, I went to the booth for one last demo, and the chance to speak to the person behind it all… who was sat at his demo kiosk playing the keytar. Read more  ( 21 min )

After teasing a reveal for Warner Bros’ licensed brawler MultiVersus earlier this week, devs Player First Games have revealed that Gizmo from kids horror film Gremlins will be the game’s next fighter. Gizmo is the original gremlin, and the sweetest, but you still wouldn’t want to mess with the little fellow. He’ll arrive on Tuesday, ahead of the already announced Stripe, Gremlins' big (small) bad. Read more  ( 17 min )

Many archival and emulation projects are underway to preserve the wonderful history of Flash games, and best of all are those which try to recreate the original experience: just clicking a link then playing a game inside your browser. Now one unofficial Flash Player emulator is adding support for more classic games, ones made in the (relatively) newfangled ActionScript 3 language. So you can party like it's 2008 by heading over to Newgrounds and playing You Have To Burn The Rope again, as well as Wonderputt and a handful of others. Read more  ( 17 min )

Inti Creates have earned themselves a reputation in recent years, through titles like Blaster Master Zero and the Azure Striker Gunvolt series, of creating visually-intricate and technical 2D platformers. Their games scratch the nostalgic itch while not reverting to the technical problems and gameplay hurdles that we’ve long since moved beyond. Part of what makes Gunvolt appealing is that it refines and expands upon a formula we see in the Mega Man X series, and it’s a similar intent that defines the company’s approach to their latest project, Grim Guardians: Demon Purge. Read more  ( 17 min )

Halo series stewards 343 Industries have given a rather sombre update on the state of Halo Infinite’s future, and there’s a lot of delays and cancellations. The game’s campaign network co-op, season 3 of multiplayer, and Forge mode have been pushed back, and couch co-op outright cancelled. And if there’s one thing about Halo that you don’t mess with then it would seem that’s couch co-op. Read more  ( 17 min )

Leaked Assassin’s Creed game Mirage is real, Ubisoft have confirmed, and they’re planning to show more of it at next week’s Ubisoft Forward event. All we know for sure so far is that the game exists, it’s definitely called Mirage, and returns to the Middle Eastern setting of the original Assassin’s Creed. I rather like the blue highlights to the assassin’s robes in this one. Read more  ( 17 min )

As indie developers from Japan and around the world descended upon the former Japanese capital of Kyoto for Bitsummit 2022, some developers present at the event were showcasing their games a little closer to home. Having already been hyped up amongst Japanese games outlets for its unique visuals and inspirations from Japanese yokai and folk tales, Kitsune: The Journey Of Adashino was a rather hot ticket at the event, and with an English localisation and a release in 2023 or 2024 planned, it stands with the opportunity to shine a light on the Japanese indie gaming scene. While it may perhaps be reductive to make a Studio Ghibli comparison to the game’s opening moments, the familiarity many have with those films compared to Japanese folklore makes the equivalence an easy one. My time with the demo was from a moment early in the game, when you’ve already set foot into this new world but don't have much knowledge about the yokai-infested supernatural surprises that await you. Read more  ( 17 min )

Noelia är tillbaka från semestern och kastas därför in i första bästa panel för att diskutera veckans händelser i hårdvaruvärlden.  ( 5 min )

När standarden för USB 4 uppdateras plockar USB Promoter Group upp USB-IF:s mantel och kombinerar skyhöga hastigheter med fler förvillande versionsnummer.  ( 6 min )

Höstens stora höjdpunkt Moderskeppet samlar det bästa från SweClockers och FZ på en härlig dygnskryssning. Nu står det klart att biljetterna redan tagit slut.  ( 6 min )

Höstens stora höjdpunkt Moderskeppet samlar det bästa från SweClockers och FZ på en härlig dygnskryssning. Nu står det klart att biljetterna redan tagit slut.  ( 6 min )

Inom kort kommer det gå att lägga till Philips Hue-bryggor i mjukvaran ICUE för att styra och synkronisera belysningen ihop med Corsairs övriga produkter.  ( 5 min )

Netflix indikerar att företaget ska försöka möta Disney+ genom att göra sitt reklamfinansierade abonnemang tillgängligt tidigare än väntat.  ( 5 min )

Qualcomms satsningar på PC- och serversegmentet stöter på patrull, då ARM menar att licenser tilldelade förvärvet Nuvia inte är giltiga längre.  ( 6 min )

AMD bekräftar att DDR5 i 6 000 MHz ger användare bäst balans mellan pris, prestanda och stabilitet. Samtidigt delas nya riktlinjer för Infinity Fabric-inställningar.  ( 6 min )

Previous updates: 2018, 2021 Kiwix is an offline content reader, best known for distributing copies of Wikipedia. I have been maintaining it in Debian since 2017. This year most of the work has been keeping all the packages up to date in anticipation of next year's Debian 12 Bookworm release, including several transitions for new libzim and libkiwix versions. libzim: 6.3.0 → 8.0.0 zim-tools: 2.1.0 → 3.1.1 python-libzim: 0.0.3 → 1.1.1 (with a cherry-picked patch) libkiwix: 9.4.1 → 11.0.0 (with DFSG issues fixed!) kiwix-tools: 3.1.2 → 3.3.0 kiwix (desktop): 2.0.5 → 2.2.2 The Debian Package Tracker makes it really easy to keep an eye on all Kiwix-related packages. All of the "user-facing" packages (zim-tools, kiwix-tools, kiwix) now have very basic autopkgtests that can provide a bit of confidence that the package isn't totally broken. I recommend reading the "FAQ for package maintainers" to learn about all the benefits you get from having autopkgtests. Finally, back in March I wrote a blog post, How to mirror the Russian Wikipedia with Debian and Kiwix, which got significant readership (compared to most posts on this blog), including being quoted by LWN! We are always looking for more contributors, please reach out if you're interested. The Kiwix team is one of my favorite groups of people to work with and they love Debian too.  ( 1 min )

“OK,” you’re probably thinking. “John, you talk a lot about things like Gopher and personal radios, and now you want to talk about building a reliable network out of… USB drives?” Well, yes. In fact, I’ve already done it. What is sneakernet? Normally, “sneakernet” is a sort of tongue-in-cheek reference to using disconnected storage to transport data or messages. By “disconnect storage” I mean anything like CD-ROMs, hard drives, SD cards, USB drives, and so forth. There are times when loading up 12TB on a device and driving it across town is just faster and easier than using the Internet for the same. And, sometimes you need to get data to places that have no Internet at all. Another reason for sneakernet is security. For instance, if your backup system is online, and your systems be…

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic  ( 2 min )

No content preview  ( 1 min )

Lenovo dangles a platform-agnostic carrot in front of AR hopefuls.  ( 6 min )

Users won't get refunds for hidden fee, but deal in Conn. imposes other conditions.  ( 6 min )

"I don't know whether the business case closes today."  ( 7 min )

A bigger screen, better specs, and more fitting OS could finally make foldable PCs a thing.  ( 6 min )

Flaw resided in the app's deeplink verification process.  ( 5 min )

"Everything I can see with my eyes, a person who is blind can feel with their fingers."  ( 5 min )

Some of Dell's XPS 13 Plus notebooks with OLED displays have a screen panel glue problem.  ( 63 min )

Alleged GeForce RTX 4080: Huge cooler, strange fonts, new fan.  ( 60 min )

Cooler Master has unveiled two new computer chassis and a very expensive vertical GPU mount adapter with an extensive amount of flexibility.  ( 64 min )

Micron announces new leading-edge memory fab in Idaho, coming online by 2030.  ( 60 min )

We've done extensive testing with the Intel Arc A380, a graphics card with plenty of delays and a problematic launch. The latest drivers help, and Intel's video encoding options are ahead of everyone else, but most people should probably look elsewhere.  ( 64 min )

It's that time of year when we anticipate the release of the next generation of PC tech, and also a great time to start picking up some deals. Today Intel's Core i7-12700KF is down to a low of $321 on Amazon.  ( 66 min )

1TB disks (in 10TB caddies) are aimed at enterprises, and won't be ready until 2024.  ( 60 min )

USB 4 version 2.0 has just been announced with incredibly speeds of up to 80Gbps.  ( 59 min )

Here are our favorite gaming laptops for every need, based on our testing and reviews.  ( 75 min )

With more DDR5 chips on the market, the price is likely to drop.  ( 60 min )

TrendForce has revised down its NAND flash wafer contract price estimates from 15-20 to 30-35% during Q3 2022. It expects prices to dip a further 20% in Q4 this year.  ( 60 min )

A new post has revealed the new naming scheme for AMD's upcoming Zen 4 and Zen 4c EPYC server processors.  ( 61 min )

New high-performance GPU export rules to China affect AMD and China's multi-billion high-tech companies.  ( 60 min )

Up your game with the best gaming mouse for your grip.  ( 86 min )

The Seasonic Prime TX-1600 is one of the best PSUs, money can get you today.  ( 70 min )

The Gigabyte B660M Aorus Pro AX is a generally well-appointed motherboard with a black-on-grey aesthetic. There are plenty of USB ports on the rear IO, but the performance was slower in some heavily multi-threaded tests.  ( 67 min )

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold has been reimagined with a 16.3-inch display, a new design and more powerful processors.  ( 64 min )

Lenovo’s Legion Y32p-30 boast a 4K 144Hz panel with FreeSync Premium support.  ( 59 min )

The Lenovo Glasses T1 create a virtual monitor to work with your phone or PC.  ( 60 min )

Robert Hallock, the Director of Technical Marketing at AMD, shares details about the best memory settings on the latest Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 processors.  ( 59 min )

U.S. government now requires Nvidia to obtain a license to sell A100, A100X, and H100-based products to China.  ( 60 min )

It's fair to say that eyebrows were both raised and furrowed when Sega first shared footage of Sonic Frontiers back in June, but its latest trailer - a three-minute overview video breaking down the various features and gameplay flow of Sonic's latest adventure - offers the clearest explanation yet of how things will unfold come its launch on 8th November if you're still a little puzzled by the whole thing. Granted, Sega's plentiful, if scattershot, drip-feed of information over the last few months means none of the information in today's trailer is particularly new, but it's certainly more digestible - and understandable - than trying to mentally scoop together a picture of Sonic Frontiers from countless previews and reveals. The gist, then, is that having somehow found his way into a strange dimension known as Cyber Space, Sonic escapes to Kronos - one of the Starfall Islands where players will be able to embark on Frontiers' non-linear "open zone" gameplay. Here, high-speed exploration and puzzling are the order of the day, with successful puzzling unlocking items that'll increase Sonic's power and defence and revealing new parts of each map. Read more  ( 15 min )

Warner Bros is teasing the imminent arrival of Gremlins' adorable mogwai Gizmo to its free-to-play crossover fighter MultiVersus, with the company's announcement pointing to a release next Tuesday, 6th September. Although Warner Bros is yet to refer to Gizmo directly, a teaser trailer released today on Twitter shows a pair of very Gizmo-like hands and eyes popping out of the distinctive box used to transport the character in Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch. What makes the Gizmo tease particularly interesting is that (despite Gizmo's inclusion in the playable roster having been leaked earlier this year) the only Gremlins character so for officially confirmed for MultiVersus is Gizmo's arch-nemesis Stripe. Read more  ( 15 min )

Paradox Interactive has unveiled Toxoids, a new Species Pack DLC for Stellaris that'll bring the "most stubborn species in the game's history" when it comes to PC on 20th September. Toxoids will give players the tools to "gamble the future of their planets for immediate gains" on release, with empires featuring the new species able to grow and adapt faster than most creatures - albeit often with nasty consequences for their neighbours and themselves. To that end, the expansion introduces two new Origins: Knights of the Toxic God and Overtuned. The former revolves around a mysterious power rumoured to be buried under toxic sludge which can be unleashed on the galaxy if found, while the latter gives players the chance to play as a species able to gain more and more traits at the expense of their own lifespan. Read more  ( 15 min )

In October 2019, global pop sensation Lady Gaga appeared confused as to what Fortnite was. "What's fortnight?" Gaga tweeted, elliciting numerous responses. One reply, from blue-haired Fortnite streamer Ninja, asked Gaga to play with him. "who are you," was Gaga's response. Read more  ( 15 min )

Not content with completing Elden Ring with one hand, Twitch streamer MissMikkaa is now playing through the game on a dance pad. With all the bizarre ways of playing, this feels inevitable right? The one-handed run was already an impressive feat - especially as it was quickly followed by a one-handed level one All Remembrance run - but now she's playing with her feet instead. Read more  ( 15 min )

343 Industries has shared its latest development roadmap, and it's not good news. The biggest news is that the game's next season has been delayed to March 2023. That's an excruciatingly long time to wait. For context, Battlefield 2042, which released around the same time and also suffered delays, is also on Season 2, with the next Season planned for the end of this year. The bad news doesn't end there, as split-screen local co-op has now been cancelled outright. "In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates, we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op," 343 said in an accompany development video. Read more  ( 15 min )

For those that had hoped to see upcoming space horror The Callisto Protocol make its way onto Xbox Games Pass at release, this seems unlikely. Chatting to TrueAchievements, Striking Distance Studios' chief technology officer Mark James said the Game Pass model was a "difficult" one in financial terms for independent studios with single-player games - something The Callisto Protocol is. "I think those services are built towards some of the open-world style and repetitive multiplayer games. I think games [like that] survive well on that service," James said when discussing the possibility of seeing a title like The Callisto Protocol joining Game Pass. Read more  ( 16 min )

Publisher PQube is under fire once again from another developer claiming funds have been withheld. Last week Coffee Talk developer Toge Productions released a statement explaining issues with the publisher that left the team "feeling manipulated and exploited". Now Corecell, the Thai developer behind AeternoBlade 2, has released a damning statement against the publisher to "help other indie game developers to avoid what has happened to us and inform our fans about our situation". Read more  ( 16 min )

The PlayStation VR2 will be easier for developers to port the games onto, Sony has said. The comments were made by Yasuo Takahashi and Kenjo Akiyama, two senior directors at Sony Interative Entertainment, at an event during Computer Entertainment Developers Conference (CEDEC) 2022. The talk revealed new details about the software that will help developers in creating for or porting onto PSVR2 (reported by IGN). Read more  ( 15 min )

Fortnite has begun its second annual Pride event, Rainbow Royale, with a collection of free LGBTQ-themed cosmetics, and the arrival of DC's transgender superhero Dreamer. Nia Nal, otherwise known as Dreamer, debuted in the fourth season of Arrowverse series Supergirl, and was the first trans superhero in a TV show. By extension, this also makes Dreamer the first character confirmed as trans in Fortnite. Dreamer will be available via Fortnite's Item Shop later in the event, following a Zero Build Squads tournament where winners can collect the character early. Dreamer's TV actress Nicole Maines is also on board, and will be streaming Fortnite in-character next week. Read more  ( 15 min )

The Last of Us on PS3 was a boundary-pushing title with stunning graphics and animation. Novel techniques - like capsule shadows and real-time bounce lighting - alongside ruthless attention to detail produced one of the most technically accomplished games in its time, even though it often failed to reach its 30fps target, frequently dipping into the mid-20s in combat and traversal sequences. Enter The Last of Us Part 1. Some nine-and-a-half years after its original release, The Last of Us has been fully remade with modern technology on PS5 hardware. With an advanced suite of graphics tech in tow, does the remake also blow past its frame-time budgets? Or has Naughty Dog more sensibly balanced visual beauty with fluid frame-rates? The Last of Us Part 1 offers players five genuine visual modes, engaged through various selections and system-level tweaks. With the PS5 set to 60Hz output, you get the option of a fidelity mode that offers 4K visuals with a 30fps target framerate, alongside a performance mode that advertises dynamic 4K visuals or native 1440p visuals depending on your output resolution - but actually delivers 1440p regardless. With 120Hz engaged, you get the same options, though the fidelity mode now promises a 40fps framerate target. As an additional modifier, engaging both 120Hz and VRR gives you the option to 'unlock' the 120Hz options, maximising frame-rate and using VRR to smooth out any inconsistencies. Read more  ( 20 min )

The Pokémon Company has officially revealed the next Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet: Grafaiai. The Pokémon has been teased all week with a series of images taken by a Paldean photographer featuring brightly coloured markings in a forest. Now, in a new documentary format video, we finally got a look at the little painter. Read more  ( 15 min )

Recently we've seen a flurry of announcements and releases for Soulslike games. From the recently released Thymesia and next week's Steel Rising, through to 2023's Pinocchio inspired Lies of P it feels like everyone and their dog is jumping on the action RPG bandwagon at the moment. After watching a 15 minute, hands-off presentation last week, I can also confirm that Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is most definitely a Soulslike action RPG too. However, this 'magic meets gunpowder technology' fantasy title seems to be a little braver than other games in the genre as it's not afraid to be releasing with optional difficulty settings. This means anyone who wants to experience Flintlock without fear of being punished by some very intense action will be able to tailor the experience to suit their skill level. During the presentation the developers, A44 Games did stress that there is a specific default difficulty for the game though, and this will allow you to maintain the authenticity of the experience and play the game as originally intended. Read more  ( 17 min )

Men of War 2, the sequel to the original cult RTS Men of War, will now release in 2023. Developed by Ukrainian studio Best Way, this release has been delayed in order to "accommodate new features and content suggested by its fans and improve the game itself". The development team noted that, due to the ongoing effects of the war in Ukraine, these improvements would not be possible to facilitate within the original timeframe. Along with this announcement, the developer also shared a new trailer for Men of War 2. This is titled 'The Price of Victory', and can be watched below. Read more  ( 16 min )

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has issued a new blog post detailing plans for Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard franchises, following today's announcement from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that it will scrutinise the deal in detail. As you would expect, Call of Duty, Overwatch and Diablo will be made available via Xbox Game Pass, Spencer said, if and when Microsoft's $68bn buyout of Activision Blizzard is completed. Spencer also made the guarantee that Xbox was "committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere". Read more  ( 16 min )

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has concluded its initial investigation of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, making the decision that the deal requires a more in-depth "phase 2" investigation. In its report, the CMA has determined that the deal will be "giving rise to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services." Crucially, the CMA decided the deal would have a large impact on the success of rival platforms: "Evidence consistently pointed towards ABK's content, especially Call of Duty, as being important and capable of making a material difference to the success of rivals' gaming platforms." Read more  ( 17 min )

A new trailer for Tchia has been released, giving us a closer look at the game's tropical, New Caledonia-inspired setting. This trailer is narrated by the game's director, Phil Crifo, and takes us from the island's high peaks to the bottom of its azure ocean. Along the way, we are shown various methods of getting around the island in action. This includes things such as Tchia catapulting herself from the tops of trees and then gliding her way through the sky. We also get another look at the game's soul-jumping ability, which allows Tchia to quickly hop into the body of almost any animal or inanimate object she can find. This proves useful when she comes across the Maano, the game's "strange fabric creatures" that have invaded Tchia's home. In this case, she becomes a lantern, before later on becoming a coconut. You can see the trailer for yourself below. Read more  ( 15 min )

As we reach closer to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's October release date, national content rating boards have been reviewing the game for classification. The Australian Classification Board has jumped the gun and published its classification early, and it makes for a humorous read. The ACB warns that the game depicts "tracking and killing of numerous opponents, with resulting examples of blood and injury detail." Read more  ( 15 min )

Valve has announced the top 10 games played on Steam Deck in August, plus another milestone it has reached. Things are looking smooth for Steam Deck right now. Production is doing well, outperforming Valve's estimates, and people are finally getting their hands on a unit. To round off August, Valve has revealed the 10 most played games on Steam Deck during the month. Read more  ( 16 min )

A new listing implies that Biomutant will be getting a Switch release this October. The listing, spotted by GoNintendo, can be found on Portuguese site Gaming Replay. It includes a price (54,99 €), Switch box cover art, and a release date - 25th October. While nothing has been officially announced by developer Experiment 101, a Switch edition of the game has long been rumoured to be coming eventually. Read more  ( 15 min )

Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden has a release date: 13th September across Switch, PS4 and PC (Steam). It's the third game in Square Enix's Voice of Cards series that presents a turn-based RPG entirely through cards. The series is created by NieR's Yoko Taro, which is why there's DLC for the game based on mobile game NieR Re[in]carnation. Read more  ( 15 min )

The Xbox mobile app for iOS and Android is getting a major upgrade to its search engine. The update, which is available right now for beta users, improves the algorithm that powers game searches. Search for games on the Xbox app has been notoriously bad up until this point, igniting the console wars between PlayStation and Xbox fans since the PlayStation is relatively good at finding what you want. Read more  ( 15 min )

Promotional artwork for the still-unannounced Assassin's Creed Mirage has popped up online, apparently from Ubisoft's own store. The image, shared on Twitter by Assassin's Creed fansite The Codex Network, appears to be for some kind of bonus quest. It shows a hooded Assassin hero armed with the series' iconic hidden blade weapon, facing down the silhouette of an enemy with a curved sword. Setting a story mission around the famous fable of The Forty Thieves would mirror other such bonus quests offered by Ubisoft in the past, such as a Beowulf-themed story for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Read more  ( 15 min )

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, the indie spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio, has been delayed until summer 2023. It was originally intended to release this year. Developer Team Reptile is taking extra time to increase the quality of the game. Read more  ( 15 min )

What do you think of when you hear the words "Fighting Fantasy"? Do you remember being absorbed for hours as a child, hurriedly flipping pages and rolling dice, hoping you'd chosen the right path? Perhaps you talked about it with friends in the schoolyard, swapping strategies, comparing notes. You almost certainly remembered the deaths. Whatever you remember of it, the effect the books had is undeniable. More than 20 million copies have been sold, making writers Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson best-selling authors, in addition to all of the other plaudits they've received. In fact, few people are as decorated in the games industry. And this year, Fighting Fantasy turns 40 years old, just like me. And in celebration, two new books are being released: Shadow of the Giants, by Livingstone, and Secrets of Salamonis, by Jackson. And they're coming out today - Thursday, 1st September. Read more  ( 25 min )

Developer Endnight Games has announced "one last" delay for Sons of the Forest, with the horror-survival sequel now set to arrive on 23rd February next year. Sons of the Forest is the direct sequel to Endnight's well-received The Forest (which got its version 1.0 release in 2018 after four years in early access), a game that combined the survival genre's penchant for scavenging and crafting with a genuinely unnerving horror element as protagonist Eric Leblanc searched the titular, cannibal-infested forest for his son following a harrowing plane crash. Sons of the Forest, which this time sees players tracking down a missing billionaire on a remote island, was originally due to launch in May this year, but Endnight made the decision to postpone its release to October in order to deliver its "vision of the next step in survival games". Read more  ( 15 min )

Developer Endnight Games has announced "one last" delay for Sons of the Forest, with the horror-survival sequel now set to arrive on 23rd May next year. Sons of the Forest is the direct sequel to Endnight's well-received The Forest (which got its version 1.0 release in 2018 after four years in early access), a game that combined the survival genre's penchant for scavenging and crafting with a genuinely unnerving horror element as protagonist Eric Leblanc searched the titular, cannibal-infested forest for his son following a harrowing plane crash. Sons of the Forest, which this time sees players tracking down a missing billionaire on a remote island, was originally due to launch in May this year, but Endnight made the decision to postpone its release to October in order to deliver its "vision of the next step in survival games". Read more  ( 15 min )

They were asking for it, energy giant says Thousands of Xcel Energy customers in Colorado this week discovered they’d been locked out of their smart thermostats, unable to adjust their air conditioning systems as local temperatures rose about well above 90°F this week.…  ( 4 min )

How Fog Data Science sells records of your whereabouts, according to the EFF For less than $10,000, and without a warrant, cops can buy large amounts of location data on private citizens and track people's movements over long periods of time.…  ( 6 min )

Illinois, Arizona and Iowa are the big winners in connection plan The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says it's ready to disburse nearly $800 million to fund rural broadband deployments in 19 states, with Illinois, Arizona and Iowa getting just over half of the total pot. …  ( 4 min )

$15 billion Idaho facility is the first step as chip biz feeds on CHIPS Act US memory vendor Micron will spend $15 billion over the next decade to construct what it claims is the first memory fab built by a US manufacturer in America in the last 20 years.…  ( 4 min )

Stephen Thaler is fighting the law, and the law is winning Analysis  Stephen Thaler, founder of software biz Imagination Engines, has waged a years-long campaign fighting for machines to be legally recognized as inventors around the world. Now, it looks as though his struggle may have been for nothing.…  ( 7 min )

Looks like the bird site didn't need Musk's money to get the feature added, after all Twitter's long-awaited edit button is being tested internally, and in the coming weeks will be available to Twitter Blue subscribers before a wider rollout, the social media company said today. …  ( 4 min )

Not a great look for the state that just vowed to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of battery-powered ones One week after announcing plans to phase out autos powered by gasoline, California energy authorities are facing a heat wave so severe residents are being asked not to charge their electric vehicles during "flex alerts" designed to reduce stress on the grid.…  ( 5 min )

Latest versions of the KDE Plasma and LXQt desktops now available Kubuntu and Lubuntu desktops have been upgraded but you won't automatically get the new versions. Here's how to get the optional lifts.…  ( 5 min )

Just weeks after milestone permit to charge for robotaxi rides using autonomous-driving tech General Motors autonomous unit Cruise has issued a Safety Recall report, pulling software that governed how its AVs behave when making an unprotected left turn after one of the vehicles was involved in a crash.…  ( 6 min )

Apple-developed web engine to take advantage of Git’s distributed nature, GitHub’s large community Apple-developed web rendering engine, WebKit, the basis of its Safari browser, is migrating to Git.…  ( 4 min )

Affixes magnetically attached Bluetooth unit instead of soft keyboard after feedback Lenovo has exhibited an updated version of its ThinkPad X1 Fold portable, a device that is a mash-up of a folding-screen tablet and a Windows laptop, with a sleeker, slimmer design sporting Intel's 12th-gen Core processors and Windows 11.…  ( 5 min )

Subsea Cloud boasts 1MW of capacity for up to 90% lower costs compared to landlubber facilities A company called Subsea Cloud is planning to have a commercially available undersea datacenter operating off the coast of the US before the end of 2022, with other deployments planned for the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.…  ( 5 min )

Buy a new phone or pay food and household energy bills? Shipments to crash in 2022 Smartphone shipments are forecast to shrink globally by 6.5 percent this year as many households feeling the pinch of inflation decide to prioritize paying for food, energy and other essentials over refreshing handsets.…  ( 4 min )

Starting with Google Firebase and Apache Camel repos Security researchers at Legit Security identified vulnerabilities in the GitHub automated workflows used by Google Firebase and Apache Camel that could have been abused to compromise those open-source projects through their GitHub CI/CD pipeline and insert malicious code.…  ( 5 min )

Spoiler: They used hard-coded AWS credentials Massive amounts of private data – including more than 300,000 biometric digital fingerprints used by five mobile banking apps – have been put at risk of theft due to hard-coded Amazon Web Services credentials, according to security researchers.…  ( 6 min )

Could just be a coincidence ... let's keep going into space and see what happens Analyses of blood taken before and after spaceflight have confirmed astronauts undergo genetic mutations that could make them more susceptible to developing cancer and heart disease.…  ( 5 min )

You'll just have to learn to code instead – oh wait, computers can do that, too By 2026 the call center industry could save up to $80 billion by replacing humans with AI chatbots, according to analysts at Gartner.…  ( 5 min )

Is nothing sacred? Scumbags are using a photo from the James Webb Space Telescope to smuggle Windows malware onto victims' computers – albeit in a roundabout way.…  ( 5 min )

You're under app-vest, sunshine Traffic cops in Surrey, England, have drawn criticism after revealing how they game Waze to spook drivers into slowing down while out on patrol.…  ( 5 min )

Makes Nvidia tense with ban on Tensor tech that could cost it $400m this quarter alone As part of ongoing efforts to restrict China and Russia accessing advanced American technology, the US government last week banned AMD and NVIDIA from selling some AI kit to China.…  ( 5 min )

But keep your attorney on a 'short leash' against Tiversa, court warns LabMD, the embattled and now defunct cancer-testing company, will get another chance at suing security firm Tiversa for defamation following an appeals court ruling. …  ( 6 min )

DeFi, as in, defying belief The FBI has urged people to be cautious and heavily research a DeFi – decentralized finance – provider before putting your money into it, after more than a billion dollars was stolen from these providers in three months.…  ( 6 min )

Which should make you see red because using renewable energy is supposed to cut their costs SaaS vendors plan to hike prices by between 15 and 20 percent in the next three years, and one of the justifications they’ll use is the cost of their environmental sustainability programs – despite expectations that those efforts would lower their costs.…  ( 4 min )

As vCEO Raghu Raghuram tells us Big B won’t treat VMware like its other slash and burn acquisitions VMware Explore  VMware customers are waiting to see what changes Broadcom will bring to the virtualization giant, with many optimistic the impact will be positive.…  ( 5 min )

SEGA has released a new video for Sonic Frontiers that provides an overview of the game. The video shows all sorts of gameplay, and the narration provides plenty of details regarding Sonic's latest adventure. In Sonic Frontiers, our blue hero is searching for the Chaos emeralds. While on this adventure, he becomes stranded on an ancient island teeming with unusual creatures. Read more  ( 15 min )

343 Industries has provided a new roadmap for Halo Infinite that notes Forge and Campaign co-op will arrive in November with the winter update. While that is good news, there's some bad to go along with it: split-screen co-op has been canceled. Forge allows you to build maps using a special editor, and you can share your creations with other players. Forge will be available in beta form on November 8. Read more  ( 15 min )

Assassin's Creed Mirage has been announced by Ubisoft. Confirmation comes via tweet after artwork for the game leaked earlier today. Today's leak follows previous information on the game which slipped out ahead of time, such as the game's setting, character, and timeframe. Read more  ( 15 min )

It’s that time again, Rocket League fans. Season 8 is almost here, going live September 7 following an in-game update the previous day at 4PM PDT. This season is bringing the Honda Civic Type R as the first real life car present in a seasonal battle pass, a new arena, a returning event and of course a new pass for players to progress through. According to the Urban Dictionary, a Civic driver is “A usually white and slightly poor male who wears flat-brimmed hats or beanies, has tattoos and an ego larger then the federal deficit”. Having seen people matching this description out in the wild in the UK, this car is the perfect addition for a certain portion of the Rocket League community. Better yet, this is the Type R version, which can only be a good thing. In game, it has a Octane hitbox. Read more  ( 16 min )

This year’s Gamescom was a strange one. The first year back after the pandemic, many of gaming’s biggest publishers decided to skip the show – which had the welcome effect of shining a brighter spotlight on many games and publishers that usually might have to jostle with the bigger multinational corporations for attention. French publisher Focus Home Interactive, previously best known for games like A Plague Tale and Vampyr, had the best line-up of the show. But another beneficiary of the no-shows was undoubtedly Xbox. The only one of the ‘big three’ to show up, Xbox had ‘won’ the Gamescom hardware manufacturer competition before the show had even begun. But even then, I looked upon its line-up for the show with my brow furrowed. Is this it? This is a paltry offering. Not even a crumb of Starfield? But now I must hold my hands up. Mea culpa – I was wrong. It was a great line-up – for what it was. Sure enough, it didn’t have the big-name announcements you might most desire. The biggest first-party games down on the Xbox stand were simply updates to existing rolling service games like Sea of Thieves and Grounded. The booth was dominated by attention-grabbing, line-up distracting photo ops. And, bluntly, there were a laughable number of stations to play – if you managed to get on anything in that stand during the public visiting hours, you were very lucky indeed. Read more  ( 18 min )

I’ll never forget when Super Smash Bros. Ultimate crash landed into my life. To be frank, things got a little bit out of hand, and shortly after launch, my work friends and I were often staying for hours at the end of the day to battle it out. Lunch times were completely consumed by it, we even organised tournaments at local bars so that we would never have to stop playing. Eight-players, as many items as possible, and game after game of exquisitely-designed party brawler fun. When I look back on these times however, it’s not all Mario Sunshine and Rainbow Roads. No matter how brilliant, just how completely perfect Super Smash Bros. Ultimate felt in a group, there was always the looming presence of Super Smash Bros. at home. Anyone who’s played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate alone online will know it’s an absolutely miserable experience. Even though I’d confidently rank Super Smash Bros. Ultimate among my favourite games ever made, the frequently laggy and downright ancient online capabilities make it a game of two sides. As the pandemic brought down a hammer on in-person meetups and shattered any hopes of LAN parties across the world, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate became a chore to even open, and after a while I simply put it down. I’ve no doubt that if the online actually functioned, I’d probably still be playing every single day, if only for a game or two. Read more  ( 18 min )

SEGA and Two Point Studios have announced that university management sim Two Point Campus surpassed the 1 million players mark within two weeks of release. "Two Point Campus was such a thrill to create, so we’re ecstatic to see so many people enjoying the game as much as they do,” said Mark Webley, studio director. “We had high hopes that we had created something that fans would love, but the response has exceeded all expectations. We’d like to send a massive thank you to all of the players who are showing support by building their wild and wonderful campuses – we can’t wait to see what more you’ll create.” Read more  ( 16 min )

Tekken 7 has a substantial cheating problem, and it’s been a major blemish on an otherwise excellent fighter ever since it was released back in 2015. With the tease of a new Tekken project shown off during Evo, and the transition from this fan-favourite 3D brawler to something fresh in the foreseeable future, there’s a substantial worry that Tekken 7 will be left in the lurch forever. To find out as much about the cheating situation in Tekken 7, we reached out to professional players, content creators, and ordinary Tekken enthusiasts to learn their experiences with the online experience, what forms of cheating are present, and how they hope future instalments of Tekken will battle these issues. To start, it’s important to break down what ‘cheating’ actually means in the context of Tekken 7. When most people think of cheats in modern multiplayer titles, they think of exterior programs that provide a distinct advantage over other players with the most infamous examples being aimbots and wall hacks in FPS titles. Read more  ( 19 min )

Another series of allegations have been levied against UK-based indie game publisher PQube. This time, claims of mistreatment come from Corecell Technologies, who had their indie action title Aeterno Blade 2 published in Europe by PQube back in 2019. According to an official post made by Corecell Technologies only a few minutes ago, Corecell claims that PQube has “only paid a small part of the minimum guarantee of the signing milestone by the time we sent them the game and they never paid the remaining milestones”. A minimum guarantee, generally speaking in the context of video game marketing and publishing, is an agreed upon sum of money that a publisher will pay to the developer of a game over the course of the partnership. It’s a minimum guarantee of funds, that is meant to go to the devs as they meet certain development milestones. Read more  ( 16 min )

A new Pokemon has been revealed for the upcoming Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Called Grafaiai, the toxic monkey Pokemon is a Normal/Poison-type with the abilities Unburden and Poison Touch. It apparently likes to claim territory by painting trees in the area. How this works is the nocturnal Pokemon licks its hands and fingers to cover them in poison. It then uses this poison paint on the trees, which in turn paralyzes Bug Pokemon drawn to the saliva’s sweet, fragrant scent. Read more  ( 15 min )

A Plague Tale: Innocence was a breakout hit: it came from pretty much nowhere, infested the minds of gamers the world over, and gnawed through any preconceptions of what everyone thought would be just another stealth game’. Asobo Studio picked up accolades ranging from best narrative, best art direction and studio of the year – as well as a slew of Game of the Year awards – for its sleeper hit effort with the first game in the series. And rightly so; rarely do we see stories so affecting, so artfully done, and so sublimely grotesque… all at the same time. So, following up with A Plague Tale: Requiem was never going to be an easy feat. Asobo wasn’t even sure if it’d get to make a sequel to the game whilst the original was in development – and that’s probably for the best. It means the original story wasn’t chopped up, butchered, and Frankenstein’d back together for the sake of a sequel. It means that each game retains its own identity, its own outlook, and its own take on where storytelling and mechanics intersect. It means that Requiem, from what we’ve seen so far, is even more harrowing than its predecessor. From a top-down view, Requiem is very much more of the same: high fidelity graphics, an emphasis on stealth, deep and unsettling horror thumbed into every pore of the game. Wherever you do, there’s the chattering of rats and the pungent smell of death – this is a world where Europe is still in the grips of a heaving infestation, after all. Your actions in the last game haven’t solved the vermin epidemic. But where the first game made you feel underpowered and vulnerable, just children trying to survive in a world utterly hostile to life, Requiem makes you the threat – in some quietly horrifying ways. Read more  ( 19 min )

Some artwork purportedly from the rumored Assassin's Creed Mirage has surfaced online. Reportedly pulled from the Ubisoft Store, the image shows the back of a person wearing assassin's garb, and we presume this person is Basim from Assassin's Creed Valhalla, as rumored. The leak (thanks, RPS) comes from Assassin’s Creed community The Codex Network, which credited Synth Potato for providing the image, which was also shared by leaker ScriptLeaksR6. Some accounts removed the image due to DMCA notices. Read more  ( 16 min )

Microsoft intends to add Activision Blizzard’s library of games to Game Pass, particularly Call of Duty, Diablo, and Overwatch. That's according to an open letter discussing the Activision Blizzard acquisition penned by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. "Subscription services like Game Pass make gaming more affordable and help players from all over the world find their next favorite game," said Spencer. "Game Pass empowers developers to bring more games to more players, not fewer. Read more  ( 16 min )

Just yesterday, a rumour emerged that the next Nintendo Direct is much closer than you might’ve though, and it’s going to be packed with news for keen Zelda fans. This report comes directly from Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb in a recent stream to YouTube. In the video, Grubb suggests that a Nintendo Direct could be happening the week of September 12, which is the same week that the Tokyo Game Show is expected to begin – this does track, given that we have seen a Nintendo Direct every September since the launch of the Nintendo Switch in 2017. When it comes to what this rumoured Nintendo Direct will feature, Grubb suggests that “I think there’s going to be a lot of Zelda stuff at this thing.” More specifically, it’s believed that Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD ports could very well be coming to Nintendo Switch soon. These titles have been rumoured before, and are also very much titles that fans want to see on the newer console. Read more  ( 16 min )

There are a ton of Blue Microphones on sale at Amazon UK at the moment, as part of their 'gaming week' promotion. As well as the Yeti and Snowball USB microphones that are most likely to be familiar to you, there's also a rare 42% discount on the Blue Blackout Spark XLR mic - nice. However, the microphones I'd like to focus on today are those popular options, specifically the Blue Snowball Ice and the Blue Yeti X. These represent the top and the bottom of the Blue spectrum when it comes to gaming-friendly USB mics. Read more  ( 17 min )

Did you know you can get a 32GB kit of 6000MT/s DDR5 RAM and a 2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD for £235 at CCL? That's an awesome deal on a normally £500 bundle that gives you some of the most critical components for a new high-spec Intel 12th-gen system. To get the deal, follow the link below to the TeamGroup Delta DDR5-6000 RAM. Add this to your cart, and you'll see that the TeamGroup Cardea Z44Q 2TB NVMe SSD is added for free as well. To reduce the price further, use code AFF15 at the checkout. Read more  ( 16 min )

The second-best way to make Twitter palatable (after simply unfollowing sources of bad tweets) is to follow a load of curated and bot accounts which trickle niceness into your timeline. Today I'd like to suggest adding Skybox Satellite, a Twitter account which shows glimpses of the skies wrapped around maps in GoldSrc games like Half-Life and Counter-Strike. It's sometimes pretty, sometimes nostalgic, and sometimes impressive. Read more  ( 20 min )

Back at Geoff Fest, I spoke with Glenn Schofield about The Callisto Protocol, its gore system, spiky walls, and batteries. From what I'd seen and heard, I was keen to see more of the sci-fi horror game that's not Dead Space but is also quite like Dead Space. So, at this year's Geoffscom I was able to see a 20-minute presentation of some new Callisto goodness and then chat with Striking Distance Studios' chief technology officer Mark James about what I'd seen. We touched on dismemberment, 3D printers, and Shaun Of The Dead, naturally. Read more  ( 20 min )

If you thought things could get awkward and tense in Crusader Kings 3 then just wait for the arrival of its Friends And Foes pack on September 8th. There’s also the upcoming free Bastion update, which introduces memory maps for characters, the loyal and disloyal traits, and revamps childhood events. Have a watch of the trailer for Friends And Foes below, old buddy, old pal. Read more  ( 17 min )

Last week HyperX announced their first-ever gaming monitors, the Armada 25 and Armada 27, and within a couple of days I was being led into their Gamescom booth to try each of them for myself. After a disappointingly uncomfortable preview of the Samsung Odyssey Ark, it was nice to get to grips with a far more utilitarian pair of monitors – albeit not without a party trick of their own, namely HyperX’s Armada Gaming Mount. Read more  ( 18 min )

Standing on the shoulders of giants (Brendy and Pip and everyone else who did the podcast before us) means we have reached episode 200 of The Electronic Show podcast! Wowzer! Thanks for being with us for this record-breaking feat. We asked for suggestions and received many excellent ones, but in the end we went with a suggestion from Jonathon which, at the time we recorded, I did not realise would be instantly revealed by the episode title. Cheers to you all! Read more  ( 16 min )

Further investigation of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard is needed by the UK’s competition regulator, a statement on the government’s website confirmed today. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) began the preliminary stage of their investigation at the beginning of July, with a deadline set for September 1st. That initial stage of investigation found that the deal could “substantially lessen competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services”. Read more  ( 18 min )

What looks like promotional material for an unreleased Assassin’s Creed game is being shared online today, starring someone in assassin garb for the first time in seven years. The images show what’s purported to be artwork of something called The Forty Thieves Quest for the rumoured Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, also known by the development name of Rift. Read more  ( 17 min )

Stories always came first for the team at NOVECT. The critical and commercial success of The House In Fata Morgana surprised many upon the title’s international release, including the developers themselves. Headlines were made when the game shot temporarily to the spot of most critically-acclaimed game of all time on Metacritic, despite being still relatively under the radar beforehand. Fata Morgana first released to the public in Japan in 2012, and gained a cult following before its eventual successful international release. The reason for it's acclaim? Storytelling. Every single review praised Fata Morgana's surprising and enthralling twists and turns as what made this visual novel a must-play title, even for non-fans of the genre. At the time development started, NOVECT were less a development studio, and more of a group of univeristy friends with minimal coding experience but a love for telling stories; a hobby project run by friends on the side of university and normal jobs inside and out of the games industry, only becoming a fully-fledged studio later down the line. Fast forward to today, NOVECT are a firmly-established indie developer with games and multimedia adaptations of their work under their belt, and new project still mysteriously known as "Project Code Name 'M'" now in the works. Originally starting development in 2019 and announced earlier this year, Project M had its first public demo at this month’s Bitsummit indie gaming showcasing in Kyoto. Read more  ( 20 min )

Futuristic cel-shaded skate ‘em up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has seen its release window pushed back. The spiritual successor to classic Dreamcast skateathon Jet Set Radio had been scheduled to arrive sometime this year. You can now expect to play it in summer 2023. Read more  ( 16 min )

There were high expectations going into Buried Memory, patch 6.2 for Final Fantasy XIV - new raids, new story, and, most importantly, a new mode called Island Sanctuary to fulfil all of your farming dreams. There were Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing memes aplenty in the run up to release, with players hungry to customise their own cosy piece of Hydaelyn. Meant as a casual mode to relax away from dungeons and grinding levels, Island Sanctuary has no Job level limitations and can be enjoyed by anyone. Even though you can craft your own buildings and gather materials, you don’t need to have played any gathering or crafting classes. With a base to customise, crops to tend to and a pasture full of animals to pet, it’s easy to see why comparisons were drawn to other farming games such as Stardew Valley. Read more  ( 18 min )

Today was due to be the day when some older Ubisoft games would see their online services decommissioned, but the company is granting them a temporary reprieve. You now have until October 1st to cram in some multiplayer for several early Assassin’s Creeds, the original version of Far Cry 3, Driver: San Francisco and others. Ubisoft say they’ve been “exploring what is possible to reduce disruption” over the last month, hence the shuffled date for decommissioning. Read more  ( 17 min )

If the CPU is the brain of your computer and the GPU is the heart, then the power supply are the muscles, turning those thoughts and feelings into concrete action. Wait, that doesn't make any sense... In any case, power supplies are important, mm'kay, and this 550W 80+ Gold modular one from Corsair is discounted here in the UK. Normally you'd expect to pay £78 for this model - and at least £65 for one of this spec from a notable brand - but at Currys you can combine a price reduction with the code FNDDGAMING to get this PSU delivered for only £40. Read more  ( 16 min )